The Situation and State of Absolute Enslavement

The situation in Absolute Enslavement is that of a limit-situation, but in a sense every situation is a limit-situation, though this is not always transparent to those within the situation. In a transparent limit-situation something of the Absolute comes to the fore. It is my contention that the Absolute is that which partakes of the always excessive-to the-situation, or the Void.

Firstly the Void is not the classical physics notion of “Space”. Unformed matter, as Aristotle pointed out correctly, would be indistinguishable from such a concept of Void. Matter is formed space, as the fundamental particles of matter have no mass, and space has a “fabric” that can be distorted into form.

The Void, then, is punctual (there is a proof of this in the ZF system of set theory but I'll leave that alone for now). This point is, in itself, the point of Being, that is always in excess of any given situation. This is the Void, the unpresentable, the unnatural, the source of terror to any given Situation, that is hidden away by the situation's reduplication in the State.

The Site of the Situation is the proper place for some “thing”. Each situation has a “point of Being” that in a hidden way structures the Situation and makes it appropriate or proper for that particular being, yet always remains excessive to the Situation and therefore the point of that Situations finitude and destructibility.

Site and Situation come from the Latin Sitere, which also means to let, permit. “What is permitted” is what is appropriate to the situation. The State of the situation then is what is expressly permitted, while the Situation is the extent of the real possibilities inherent in it. In the M/s situation what is expressly permitted is up to the Master, and is made explicit in the slave's ongoing training. In this sense the Master is the State. In large part, then, the slave has to follow the Master's directions, however there are always things extant in the situation that are excrescent or singular to the State.

Unlimited Responsibility and the Discourse of Mastery

I have been reading Derrida and others on the dangers of a “Discourse of Mastery”. The (vom Ereignis) in the subtitle of Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy, pointing to the author as “enowned”, is of course a subtle indication that it contains a discourse of Mastery, and in fact Mastery comes up quite often within the text. As has been pointed out by Derrida, a discourse of Mastery implies “unlimited responsibility”, and while I do not think this is defensible in a horizontal manner (my responsibility for my cat doesn't imply responsibility for all cats) it seems to me appropriate that it imply an unlimited responsibility to the cat I in fact own (assuming I owned a cat, which I don't).

What does this do for human ownership? It means I have unlimited responsibility for the people who are consensually enslaved to me, through their enowning (enabling to own). Working this out in practice is always a situational, ethical problem, but it's one a Master cannot shirk or shy away from.

BDSM as M/s Praxis

“Any form of skillful coping in which you can become an expert, in which you get into a kind of flow in which you don't have to think at all, your mind is out of it and the skills in your body are doing it, we've done all of that and we've done it taking a risk too, that when you do that: you end up lost or you may end up saying things you regret having said, and if you aren't ready to take that risk you'll never become an expert in that. So, I could predict that you have taken the risk and done it and felt bad about it, and you've done it and felt good about it, and when you've got that, you've got a kind of mastery. “ - Hubert Dreyfus.

Merleau-Ponty had an important insight. When we look at certain types of expertise (and I'm betraying less philosophical interests of mine, lol) such as the expertise of an athlete, we see embodied expertise, the expertise that is not simply “unthinking” in its operation but is required to be unthinking, such that the athlete wouldn't be able to do what he/she in fact does if he/she had to think about it while doing it. In this context we have to look at such things as “muscle memory” etc. where the brain simply doesn't contain the whole representation of what is going on. Merleau-Ponty recognized, in his idea of intercorporeality, that our usual and normal interactions with the World were bodily in nature, that we don't in fact keep a mental representation of the World, the World is immediate to us through our bodying forth into it. The skill of an athlete is an extension of our normal bodying forth, not an unusual or fundamentally different manner of relating to the World, or meaning-context, in which we exist.

The “play” aspect of bdsm is related to this, as part of the praxis of M/s relationships. Most M/s relationships do in fact incorporate aspects of bdsm play, and this is not an accidental relation. Dominating someone is not, fundamentally, simply a mental thing, and as a result purely psychological or psychosocial theories of M/s fall down when it comes to praxis. The physical aspects, bodily aspects of domination and submission come to the fore in bdsm “play”, and the scare quotes are there because in an M/s context “play” is in fact very serious and very much a part of the real dynamic between the people involved. That bdsm involves skilled play, mastery of technique in a more limited sense of the word mastery than I usually use it, is part of the way that M/s is embodied and brought to a fullness beyond its psychological expression.

When mitda and I first became involved it was in both a romantic (in the old fashioned sense) and practical manner. We were not an M/s couple in any sense, in fact neither of us understood the M/s dynamic as a real possibility. But the combination of a psychological bond together with a penchant for bdsm play resulted in a very tight relationship with one another, and an unplanned but powerful tendency towards M/s within the relationship. After getting together in a physical sense, living together as a couple, and engaging in such play our relationship dynamic inevitably tended not just to M/s, but M/s in its absolute form. Without having any conceptual transparency, we lived together, played together, and developed a total power transfer dynamic. As we became more aware of the tendencies that were expressing themselves within the dynamic and attempted to achieve some sort of conceptual transparency for what we were in fact doing, ideas such as TPE/IE suddenly made sense to two people who had run across and essentially written off such ideas. One of the things this made me aware of as a person who writes on the subject, is that while I can provide a framework for thinking about such relationships, I can't justify its existence or prove anything of what I am saying, and viewing it as a framework for my reality is something that could be accepted or rejected by the reader, but probably not really understood by the reader unless they themselves had experienced a similar dynamic. And this dynamic cannot be experienced purely mentally, it requires a bodily expression, it requires the bdsm practice aspect that from a conceptual point of view seems extrinsic.

In the relationship that developed with emmie that this praxis was intrinsic came more to the fore, in that she was not, is not a masochist in the conventional sense. She doesn't engage in bdsm praxis for the sake of the physical pleasure that a conventional masochist derives from it. She engages in it, and it has felt and become necessary to both of us to engage in such practices, from a purely dominance/submission aspect. As a result it is impossible to make the error of viewing the bodily aspect as essentially separate and different from the psychological. Her enjoyment of s & m play is purely the enjoyment a submissive derives from being submissive, palpably, physically. It is the bodying forth of her submission and the bodying forth of my mastery. Our play doesn't, as a result, have the comfortable and easy feel that mitda and I attain, where mastery and submission is bodied forth in concert with deep mutual pleasure and satisfaction. Instead it results in a tension of necessity, an expression of dominance and submission with our bodies that we cannot choose to forego simply because it isn't a fundamentally pleasurable activity.

A Daedalus Christmas

Realizing I neglected to post over the holidays, I decided to wrap up what went on at House Daedalus. With mitda having put in a ton of effort to Christmas we had a pile of wrapped presents under the tree, the four usual adults, mitda's mother (also technically an adult :) ), kid-who-is-18 and the kidlet (9) all here to open them on Christmas Day. The presents were really quite good all round, me probably doing the best overall because mitda managed to score the last 5 Terry's Dark Chocolate Oranges available in Austin Texas. And I do love the Terry's Oranges. So I have enough of them to both share and be selfish with them. I also received a new copy of Sein und Zeit, my old one having oddly disappeared during the period when we lived with the MIL, and an apropos t-shirt emblazoned “If I'm not happy, nobody's happy”. For all the gift recipients mitda had put together a bunch of cool stocking stuffers last minute on a very slim budget, and opening them was one of the highlights of the day.

Generally mitda herself doesn't celebrate Christmas and so she had the slimmest pickings of the bunch (she remonstrated to everyone not to buy her presents in the weeks leading up), which didn't feel so good when she worked so hard to make it a good holiday, even though she will always do well on her holiday of choice for gifts, Valentine's Day. She and I had exchanged new rings in stainless steel, which appears to be the only metal she can wear these days without a reaction. And I have not-so-subtly brought her over to the 'dark side' of logic and set theory, and the two books she got on those subjects were a bigger prize for her than I expected.

Aside from trifles emmie's presents were a bit, ahem, virtual. She is in line for some big gifts this year but it simply was impossible to make the giving of them coincide with Christmas, so she received pictures of the items in question and the family's promise that the pictures would eventually have a material aspect to go with them. Materially she did get a wireless remote control for her digital SLR which will come in handy for getting herself in her photos. E received a bluetooth earbud from the family, which he seems to really get off on, and various and sundry smaller gifts from his birth family et al. Both kids did pretty well, although kidlet was disappointed to not get a new video game for his DS and made such known. With his recent grades (a number of F's, although most were in spelling and spelling has always been a bane), it might be better that neither of his parents saw new video games as a necessity. And the MIL also had a few nice gifts, including some from mitda's twin brother who lives some distance from here and couldn't be here in person. He was sweet enough to include gift cards for mitda and I as well. The family received a gift card from the MIL that she really shouldn't have budgeted herself to purchase, so every dollar on the card feels like twenty would have from anyone else. She has worked very hard this year to get herself back on track after a financially disastrous move a few years ago from California (occasioned by the very real need to take care of mitda's grandmother during her last years) and shown incredible toughness of spirit and resiliency in handling very difficult circumstances.

Xmas and Migraines

I took emmie to a wine cheese and widgets party Saturday afternoon, where the point was to objectify (or de-subjectify as I prefer) one's slave by not addressing them and simply using them as whatever tool one needed at the moment. It was interesting to see her reaction and the reaction of the other slaves at the event, and also to have some conversation with other Masters. More events are planned that will be different than the more common bdsm style get togethers, the first being a protocol dinner with entertainment by the slaves in the group. While mitda wasn't quite recovered enough to attend the event she did make it to the xmas party that followed (at a different ranch) and we had quite a lot of good conversation and good times. I played emmie for only the second time publicly, (the first was a very private sort of publicness at a small party) and she did very well, given that I played her rather hard, if only for a short time. She did well with being publicly nude during the playtime as well.

There are a few more xmas events in our community but this party was the big one as far as I was concerned, with a huge white elephant gift exchange (which our family did rather well at) and various other holiday attributes :).

I am definitely planning on switching jobs in the near future. One company has interviewed me but there is some distance between their offer salary wise and my expectations. Two more opportunities came up today (I am taking the day off due to a migraine and the resulting dozyness from migraine meds).

My vocabulary, its origin, and a kid difficulty

Someone I know, a thoughtful person herself, complained recently about my “reinventing vocabulary” in reference to how I write and speak, and it triggered a number of thoughts about vocabulary in general and mine in particular, which in turn triggered thoughts on issues I have had in my development as a whole.

Not that I do, or do intentionally, reinvent vocabulary (well maybe sometimes I do prefer my own terms for certain things, such as "absolute enslavement" :P ). I have a fair background in both phenomenology and the philosophy of language, particularly with reference to Hegel, Heidegger and Derrida, and so the language that I most naturally use includes terms and structures that are not unusual in these writers but are not so commonly used. But along with this I have some Asperger's traits, and fundamentally for me all language is in the first place a foreign language, English as much as symbolic logic, and am often non-verbal for long periods, so language that is unusual and seems foreign to other people doesn't seem any more foreign to me that what is deemed common parlance. I developed my sense of language despite, rather than because, language in general is a natural or easy thing for me. But I developed enough of a sense of language to serve me decently in what I do because I also had an ability for languages, whether foreign or not :).

My aspies traits have been a concern for me very recently in general. I'm not unhappy about having them – I enjoy the abilities I have as a result and I'm not upset by having had to make a slight extra effort with things like language. I learned language quite well in spite of aspies, and learned other things - such as how to judge people's perceptions of oneself - that are more difficult for aspies people than for the general population. Overall I'm quite content with the combinations of abilities I have developed - I was lucky enough that my aspies traits weren't so severe that I couldn't overcome things that I found necessary to overcome, and I learned many of the things I learned when I was too young to actually notice that it took me more or less effort than other kids.

The reason it has been a concern, then, is not particularly regarding myself, but regarding emmie and her son. Both of emmie's sons are diagnosed autistics, but the younger one really fits the description of someone with aspies more than autism, while the older one fits the description of a medium to medium-high functioning autistic more accurately. I haven't spent a great deal of time with her older son, who lives with his father in another state, but her younger son lives with us and is currently 9, which seems to be an important age for a kid with aspies. According to child development guidelines 9 to 11 is the age when children generally become social personalities. Up to that point children are an odd combination of self absorption and parent-centrism, they don't come across as completely self-interested, simply because their “self” is still integrated with those that raised them, usually their parents in this society.

But between 9 and 11 years this changes, and kids suddenly take an avid interest in one another. Peer pressure first really develops at this age and so does the need to be close to other kids, rather than first looking for parental/teacher acceptance and only later for acceptance by peers. Along with this comes the development of, not self-awareness, but awareness of how one is perceived by others. Aspies and autistic kids are often labelled not self-aware but this is a mislabelling of the fact that they are not aware of how others perceive them. They are aware of their actual “selves” quite strongly as far as I can tell. A striking difference between a fully autistic child and an aspies one, for me, is the difference between not knowing that one is perceived as “ different” or “odd”, vs. knowing it, but not necessarily understanding it or being able to change it.

So her son is having difficulty integrating with other kids at the age that they are all beginning to do so with each other. This could be a very temporary thing, where her son is delayed developmentally and will start to develop that kind of other-kid-awareness a bit later, or it could be a fundamental short-circuit in his wiring – I simply don't know enough about aspies or her son to be able to judge. From being aspies myself, in a less apparently severe way, I know that an aspies kid “can” learn that kind of awareness even if it's not altogether natural or easy. But I don't know if that's true for every aspies kid or just for some. And if it can be learned by any kid that is by definition aspies and not fully autistic (if there is a hard-and-fast line, which seems doubtful) I don't know about the best way to go about helping a kid learn it. The kid has ample reason to learn it – at present he gets picked on and his reactions to things – or more precisely how he allows people to see those reactions – makes it all the more likely he will continue to get picked on. Kids are sensitive and emotional creatures. It's not that “normies” don't get sensitive or have emotional reactions to things, but they learn more quickly than an autistic child what reactions are acceptable to show in front of whom, and what reactions will cause them to be made fun of or treated as “weird”.

This kid has it both good and bad when it comes to the severity of his difficulties. From the limited exposure I've had to his elder brother, he has much more of a chance than the elder sibling of living an apparently “normal” life. Where the elder child will always be treated as disabled in certain functional ways, the younger one may be treated as having been “developmentally” delayed, and may always be “odd” in certain ways, but will likely generally be treated as having “caught up” with everyone else. I use scare quotes on “caught up” because, as with many aspies kids, he has definite abilities as well as disabilities, and overall is very intelligent, so much so that despite an obvious learning disability he is in a regular school at the right grade for his age and is on the school's honor roll. There are many ways where he will always be “ahead” of the average kids in his classes. Not that you have to have aspies to be intelligent or have abilities, he is simply one of the lucky kids that despite whatever problems and issues he might have, he has these abilities to fall back on.

I hope that with further study, partly of aspies syndrome, mostly of emmie's son himself, we'll be able to figure out ways to help him overcome the areas where he does have difficulties. The extra effort it takes him will be worth it in terms of living the life that he will eventually want to choose for himself, and with certain other things being relatively easy for him, he should have spare energy to use on overcoming his issues.

Dasein, Mineness, Authenticity and Authority – the Origin of Existential Decisionism

“Dasein is not of the mode of vorhanden because it is not something that we ‘come across’ as we go about (BT, 69), but rather it is close to us, and is well known because it is inseparable from ourselves, but it is little understood in everyday experience because it is very close to us (BT, 69). In addition, Dasein is not zuhanden because it exists but is not for the purpose of effecting something.”

“Heidegger introduces the idea of ‘mineness’ as a quality that belongs to Dasein, as being that which is the true nature of Dasein”

Mineness, indeed replaces “an entity’ as the mode of Dasein’s authentic encounterability. However Dasein in fact is encounterable in an ‘inauthentic’ but primordial’ manner through the idea of ‘das Man’, or the “they”, the “one”.

Authenticity and inauthenticity = decisionism – the “they” as consensus, liberalism, against authenticity/authority, the “discourse of Mastery” as per Derrida. Authenticity in Heidegger’s early sense only comes with en-ownment of the Master by the en-slaved. The early sense hence not primordial. The ‘Lord’ is master by virtue of en-ownment by the en-slaved bondsman, therefore reducible. The en-slaved as not reducible. ‘Lord’ is Master only in a relative sense, in relation to the specifically en-slaved. En-slavement by en-framing (technology as techne) as ultimate reductio ad absurdum of Lordship to the en-grasping of the con-cept (Be-griff … “griff” grip or handle, old German). Origin of Heidegger’s transgression - the crucial philosophical mistake of favouring the Lord over the bondsman. C.f. the re-estimation of Being as Ereignis in terms of the mastery of the last god in “vom Ereignis.” Dasein is only encounterable as “mineness” by the Lord after a dialectical sublation, “not-mineness” is primordial.

“The possibility of seeing Dasein as either vorhanden or zuhanden results from the fact that in ‘being-in-the-world’ Dasein is constructed of stuff like the world and could be mistaken. Such a mistaking of Dasein for one of the other kinds of being would result in inappropriate relations and behaviour because it would reduce people to being either equipment or mere objects.”

Inappropriate relations or appropriative relations? c.f. the “event of appropriation”. Appropriating as the bringing into what is most proper, das eigen., “own”, ownhood, en-owning.

“Previous western views of humanity regarded people as either bipartite, body and soul, or tripartite, body, soul and spirit, and lead to the assumption that a person is a synthesis of the parts, but in Heidegger’s view Dasein is existence, not a synthesis of separately existing parts (BT, 153). Thus, Heidegger argues for regarding Dasein as a complete and indivisible being that enters into relations and intrinsically is a complete, unified, entity. There are multiple Dasein, which necessarily have some kind of relation to each other, whether warm and friendly or hermitic or otherwise, and these relations are characterized by Heidegger as ‘Being-with’ (BT, 160).”

Dasein is not the knowing Subject of Descartes but the unitary facticity of existence as disclosed. “Disclosedness” also involves “being-with” and allows truth to appear and be known as shared truth. “Eternal truth” depends on eternity, something we are entirely unsure about in a finite universe. “Objective” truth depends on the separation of subject/object, but the implicit intent of these notions – shared truth, or truth outside the individual existing human, is validated by Heidegger in the concept of disclosedness. “Truth” may only be disclosed to Dasein, but it “is” disclosed to, not determined by, the particular Dasein. Without requiring the basis in absolute knowledge of Hegel (only valid for beings within metaphysics) Heidegger offers support for the idea of shared truth about facticity.

A Long Day

We spent much of this rather longish day a little high on vicodin and flexeral. After the stress last night and the sorting it out this morning we all needed a mental vacation, at least I did.

The girls remain as they were as far as our relationship goes. There will be no more “topping from the bottom”. They can make requests, yes, but they cannot and will not be upset if the requests aren't granted.

On a happier note they get fitted tomorrow for their hallowe'en constumes. God knows what I'm going as though. Maybe I'll go as the host, who always dresses as a Texas rancher. Of course he has the ranch to back him up, our 12 sq ft or so backyard doesn't really count :).

Crrrriiiitttic !

During a conversation Saturday night a Master friend of mine brought up the “Master's inner critic”, in the sense of the following situation. When living 24/7 in an absolute enslavement relationship it can be easy for the Master to get lazy at times. Suddenly there's a “wait a minute, s/he didn't do ... while s/he was doing ... - ah well, let it go this time, the game's on ...”, and this happens a few times in a day, maybe multiply that by a few days, and you've suddenly let a few dozen “ little things” slide.

Then suddenly you decide you have to correct him/her and set things straight. But the “inner critic” is saying “oh yea, come down on him/her NOW after you were too lazy to do it the other three dozen times”, and it becomes a difficult thing to do. And if it keeps on going the AE dynamic is lost completely, the slave no longer expects correction, and the Master loses the ability to do it and just lets the relationship lapse.

Ironically that very thing happened to me seemingly directly afterwards. Having been faced with two slaves suffering from the muted grays, browns and blacks of the depressive end of the bipolar spectrum, and having been home to take care of some things that I wouldn't normally have time for, I found that all of a sudden E. was making dinner every night (or scrounging McD's or KFC for the family), the bedroom, master bathroom, kitchen and closets all looked like thermonuclear test sites and at 7:30am the only person even close to being awake and prepared to leave the house was myself, so I was taking the kidlet to school while E. got ready for work, and my two slaves snored peacefully in bed.

Time to bring out the heavy guns! Yep, I sent an EMAIL, lol. Detailing what wasn't done and that it had to be done from now on.

Or else!!!!

Or else what?

The inner critic was hounding me on that one but I went ahead anyway. Tonight the kitchen, bedroom, master bathroom and closet have all been cleaned and nitpicked over, we had a wonderful birthday dessertfest with mitda's mother, and while these sorts of things are not a cure for bipolar depression we've discussed emmie's situation in particular and come up with what I think is a workable plan to help her learn some new coping skills, as well as get her medications sorted out in a short amount of time, all without taking her near a hospital.

Critic, be damned.

Thought at its Limits

Foucault praises linguistics and psychoanalysis as examples of thought at its limits which discovers at the center of knowledge not humanity, but a sort of anti-humanity, a dead end if you will. Both linguistics and psychoanalysis find humanity suspended in a web of language, a language which mediates humanity and allows humanity to constitute an image of itself. But language is not such a stable support network; rather language's promise of solidity is something like quicksand, an infinitely regressing system which cannot comprehend its own foundation since it has no center or originary meaning to rest on. "From within language experienced and transversed as language, in the play of its possibilities extended to their farthest point, what emerges is that man has 'come to an end', and that, by reaching the summit of all possible speech, he arrives not at the very heart of himself but at the brink of that which limits him; in that region where death prowls, where thought is extinguished, where the promise of the origin interminably recedes." If humanity reveals itself only in and by language, humanity must accept a certain condemnation of silence to never be able to speak of its own origins and ends. Humanity is thrust into the foreground only to be distanced from its foundations, its background, a horizon which cannot speak and which, when approached, undoes thinking (as meaning is undone at the roots of language, the self at the roots of psychoanalysis), leaving only a horizon of the dead.

It is, then, in this context that Foucault speaks of humanity as a recent invention. Only with the elaboration of specific systems of thought which could inquire not into humanity's ideal or essence, but the functioning of the foreground and the silhouette of humanity against the enabling background. "We shall say, therefore, that a 'human science' exists, not whenever man is in question, but wherever there is analysis - within the dimension proper to the unconscious - of norms, rules, and signifying totalities which unveil to consciousness the conditions of its forms and contents." The subject of humanity was constituted during a certain moment in history which "dissolved" language, that is, an era which knowingly constructed its understanding of humanity "objectively," in between the spaces of representationality which show how humanity is deployed. According to Foucault, the human sciences address humanity in so far as people live, speak, and produce (biology, philology, and economics), and create its model by isolating and questioning the functioning of humanity when the norms and rules break down, and on that basis rebuild knowledge by showing how a functional representation of humanity can come into being and be deployed (and thus, Foucault will later argue, perfect the techniques of normalization and socialized encoding of rules via totalizing methods of power).

As language is now re-coalescing at its limits, combining thought and unthought, the Other of knowledge must give itself over to the Same. Where the limits of thinking reveal its own basis as its foundational limitations, a new way of thinking is constituted which, as Levi-Strauss says, "dissolves humanity." Foucault writes, "Since man was constituted at a time when language was doomed to dispersion, will he not be dispersed when language regains its unity?" The "death of man" seems a relatively peaceful event, not where humanity explodes with enormous violence, but a moment where humanity withdraws into the background such that a new array of knowledge can be foregrounded. Foucault does not yet have the advantage of a fully elaborated theory of language; however, if such a unity of language is not philosophized, humanity will forever find itself in a dying state, undoing itself by its own logic without our awareness. Foucault seems to ask that humanity die gracefully so that we can direct our energy to elaborating what is not yet thought, and approach a new horizon of articulation.

The Discourse of Mastery and Unlimited Responsibility

A “discourse of Mastery” is by definition ontologically (study of Being) penetrating. By this I mean that it gets at the totality of its subject matter in such a way as to have conquered it. To take an example Euclidean geometry, which carves pure space into dimensions, angles and arcs, is a discourse of Mastery of spatiality. As such it is repressive, in that it subsumes other perceptions of spatiality.

This repression can be very much freeing. Euclidean geometry frees the architect to do what he does knowing the basics will work, knowing the rules of the game. What happens when we bring quantum spatiality into the equation?

Essentially nothing, because while the architect may nod to quantum spatiality it doesn't have ontological penetration for him. It doesn't describe the beings he works with and utilizes on a day to day basis. Another Master's Mastery is as such only of a similarly comprehensive interest to myself or to my slaves. It might well be a discourse of Mastery, but it is not mine.

Mineness is a human trait, a trait of human being itself, that it is in each case mine. Or rather, is in the first place, but with the possibility of being given to another. This “giving”, or “ giving up” is en-owning, a giving of one's Being, an event (ereignis), an appropriation (bringing to the proper, to one's own). This giving up brings en-slavement, the Master's absolute subjugation of the slave. This subjugation brings its kind and tenor of Mastery.

With Mastery comes unlimited responsibility through the “ Mineness” of the slaves new mode of Being. The slave is, in totality, Mine as Master. I am therefore responsible for what my slaves do, say, imply, as much as I am for what I do, say, or imply from that event of enownment onward. From the event onward a slave is a human being with a difference, a modality of toolhood, they are some of the beings that I work with and utilize on a day to day basis. Mastery works itself out through the unlimited responsibility of using those tools daily, without hiatus. Mastery is a working through, a going through, and its workmanship is absolutely restless. It is restless in the way it moves and arranges its equipmental totality, its World, which is also the World of its slaves.

Self-Identity

Self-identification is a mysterious thing to me. People self-identify in all kinds of ways. For me it can be Master in an M/s relationship, bipolar, software architect, English-Canadian living in the US, all kinds of things that have overlapping and contradictory features.

For instance the English-Canadian background I have tends me towards socialist ideas. It can be difficult working out human ownership when one doesn't fundamentally believe in private property. And the bipolar throws a huge curve into everything, especially when both of my slaves are also bipolar. But being a Dominant is obviously not a bipolar tendency, if only proven by the fact that my two slaves ARE also bipolar.

So we tell ourselves our self-identifying stories and try to make the best of our possibilities. I am enjoying things the way they are going and I very much credit my family (current) for that.

Counselling and Mastery

I had an interesting experience last night. Jubal is in grad school to get a Master's degree in counselling (yes he plans a kink-aware practice). He interviewed me as part of his schoolwork. The particular thing he was training himself on was how to ask open ended questions. I found it quite neat that, despite knowing he was testing some technique, the technique remained effective.

With slave training I believe the same thing applies. Although the slave is aware of his/her training and the techniques applied the techniques still work just as well. In some ways they work better because the slave is involved and immersed in his/her training and is optimally working as hard at the training or harder than the Master.

I had a few criticisms of Jubal's techniques but overall he did a good job. Talking about personal issues with a family member is never easy, and it worked quite well and helped me personally somewhat in figuring out an issue I have at the moment. Not that it's a big issue like childhood molestation or anything, it's a simple work issue. But it's all the little issues that add up.. And it's the little issues that slaves have that a Master has to take the most time dealing with.

Vorhanden, Zuhanden, and Dasein, three modes of being

Vorhanden - Abstract Presence

The concept of vorhanden is translated ‘present-at-hand in BT. This is one mode of being in which being lies in the fact that something is, and is as it is in reality, which provides the mode of vorhanden for that entity (BT, 26). Awareness of the vorhanden character of an entity has a temporal structure because awareness is an event, which is necessarily tied to time and cannot be eternal. Thus, the awareness of vorhanden is a making-present of the entity (BT, 48), and thus brings the entity to a state in which it can become the object of some kind of relation to that which is aware of it, Dasein. The process of appearing that results in entities of the mode vorhanden being known is not a showing of themselves, but rather that they are evidenced by something else (BT, 52). These attributes of that which is vorhanden demonstrate that the word ‘what’, rather than ‘who’, is properly associated with the concept of vorhanden (BT, 71). Another characteristic of the vorhanden mode of being is that it is ‘in-the-world’ where ‘in’ means “sharing the same space as” (BT, 79).

The consequence of ‘being-in’ is that all entities that ‘be-in’ have a mode of being that can be reduced to vorhanden, but any such reduction of a view of the entity to merely vorhanden results in a denial of the higher modes of being that properly belong to the entity through the abstraction necessary to regard the entity as vorhanden. In contrast to things that are ‘in-the-world’ hut have a higher mode of being than is expressed in vorhanden, entities that only exist with the vorhanden mode of being are ‘belonging-to-the-world’ and so are a part of the world (BT, 93). The effect of being a part of the world is  that such entities become a part of the context o0f which Dasein is aware and with which Dasein interacts. 

Zuhanden -  Tool-Being

Heidegger identified zuhanden, ready-to-hand, as a mode of being that contrasts with vorhanden. He argues that entities become accessible when we concern ourselves with them in some way, that is, when we care about them (BT, 96). To care for entities is to become interested in them in some way so that the entity is no longer a mere object at a distance from us, as something observed and analysed, as described in the vorhanden mode of being, but rather to come into some interested relation to the entity. The fact of care makes the entity of
the kind described  ‘equipment’, zeug, that which is useful for something, and so to have a mode of being zuhanden (BT, 96).

Heidegger argues that strictly there is no such thing as ‘an equipment’ where ‘equipment’ means ‘something-in-order-to’. The ‘in-order-to’ character of the zuhanden mode implies a reference of something to something (BT, 97). That is, in the mode of being zuhanden the equipment is always linked to something else as an entity that has the purpose of effecting something other than itself for something other than itself. That which is zuhanden is known
in its relational nature as equipment for a purpose, but is not known as what it is in itself because when we use something our awareness is of its purpose rather than of it in and of itself, that is, its mode of being vorhanden (BT, 98). Thus, in order to be zuhanden the  vorhanden character must withdraw to release Dasein to perceive the entity as for a purpose.

This relation of vorhanden and zuhanden follows because when equipment is used the awareness of the user concerning the purpose of the entity rather than awareness of the entity in and of itself (BT, 99). Now, work involves using something for achieving something, whether the purpose is public or private, and thus is dependant on use of equipment (BT,  100).  However, that which is zuhanden must also be reducible to vorhanden, since there can be no
equipment where that equipment does not tangible exist as something that can be apprehended and analysed if one is able to penetrate beyond the perception of that entity as equipment (BT, 101). Consequently, that which is to be useful, has a mode of being of zuhanden and must have a mode of being vorhanden, and the difficulty in perceiving the  vorhanden character arises because it is obscured by the zuhanden character that is most immediately perceived by Dasein.

Should an entity normally perceived according to its zuhanden character be broken then it is perceived in its not useful vorhanden mode of being (BT, 103). In addition, should an item perceived by one as zuhanden be apprehended by another, who due to a lack of appropriate  experience or knowledge, is unable to perceive it as that particular zuhanden the latter may perceive it as a different zuhanden, that is as for a different purpose, or possibly as purposeless, and thus only as vorhanden.  All uses of that which has a mode of being of zuhanden relate somehow to serving one or more purposes of Dasein (BT, 116). Thus the generation of the zuhanden mode of being is dependent on Dasein generating it as an additional mode of being for an entity that is first of all vorhanden. However, having effected this transformation of vorhanden to zuhanden Dasein then primarily perceives the entity as zuhanden, and only with difficulty, if at all, as
vorhanden.  Heidegger also suggests that there may be some entities known as zuhanden that may not be encounterable and thus not knowable as objective entities that could be analysed, and their vorhanden character cannot be separated from their zuhanden character (BT, 122).

Heidegger does not posit examples of zuhanden that cannot be encountered as vorhanden. It may be worth contemplating whether such entities as knowledge or inter-personal relationships may be such unencounterables, and thus only perceivable as zuhanden because we are unable to remove the interpretative overlays of the underlying vorhanden entity in order to be able to encounter and perceive that vorhanden entity in an of itself. If this is so it would provide a foundation for our difficulty in understanding such entities.

Dasein

Heidegger uses Dasein to name and describe the mode of being experienced by humans in their own existence (BT, 32). However, Heidegger does not definitively limit Dasein to humans, and so it is possible, or plausible, that there is some other non-human entity that may also have the Dasein mode of being, but Heidegger does notdiscuss this perspective on the issue either. The distinguishing characteristic of Dasein is that Dasein is aware of Dasein’s
existence, and is aware of the question of existence, and anything that is not Dasein is not so aware (BT, 32,33). Since Dasein is aware of its being and understands the question of being, one of the pursuits of Dasein has been to pursue and explore the nature of Dasein’s being seeking the authentic meaning of being (BT, 62). This pursuit contrasts with the other pursuit that Dasein conducts in parallel, which is shared in various ways by other entities, of seeking
to support its material being. That is, in parallel with pursuit of questions of the nature of being Dasein also pursues the mundane matters of life that enable physical support of the body in a desirable manner. Dasein pursues these mundane matters in a more sophisticated manner than other entities, but the other entities do pursue the mundane in some way, as their primary activity.
Dasein is not of the mode of vorhanden because it is not something that we ‘come across’ as we go about (BT, 69), but rather it is close to us, and is well known because it is inseparable from ourselves, but it is little understood in everyday experience because it is very close to us (BT, 69). In addition, Dasein is not zuhanden because it exists but is not for the purpose of effecting something.

The traditional view of people has been as rational animals,  through
rationalist concepts such as Decartes’ “I think therefore I am”, cogito ergo sum, but this yields Hiedegger with the problem that ____ is of a vorhanden kind and _____ is of an unclear kind of being, resulting in a person, viewed in this way having an indeterminate kind of existence (BT, 74).

At this point Heidegger departs from Ancient Greek and Christian anthropology, which both  define man as essentially an entity (BT, 75). Heidegger introduces the idea of ‘mineness’ as a quality that belongs to Dasein, as being that which is the true nature of Dasein, which results  in the possibility of Dasein living either authentically or inauthentically, depending on the way of life lived by Dasein (BT, 78).
Now Dasein experiences ‘being-in-the-world’ as sharing in the space of the world, but not as being a part of the world (BT, 79). Thus Dasein lives in the world as it is, and interacts with the world, but is of a different kind to the other entities in the world. A result is that it is possible to say Dasein is of vorhanden kind, but this either is a wilful disregarding of the ‘being in’ state of Dasein or an unintentional not seeing of that ‘being-in’ state (BT, 82). The possibility of seeing Dasein as either vorhanden or zuhanden results from the fact that in ‘being-in-the-world’ Dasein is constructed of stuff like the world and could be mistaken.   Such a mistaking of Dasein for one of the other kinds of being would result in inappropriate relations and behaviour because it would reduce people to being either equipment or mere objects. That Dasein can be ‘being-in-the-world’, Heidegger’s defining concept of Dasein, is the consequence of Dasein being able to know and to conduct I-thou relations, which are entities that cannot be known as of vorhanden kind. The view of Dasein as ‘being-in-the-world’ contrasts with the vorhanden which are, ‘in-the-world’ or ‘belonging-to-the-world’ and so parts of the world (BT, 93).
Previous western views of humanity regarded people as either bipartite, body and soul, or tripartite, body, soul and spirit, and lead to the assumption that a person is a synthesis of the parts, but in Heidegger’s view Dasein is existence, not a synthesis of separately existing parts (BT, 153). Thus, Heidegger argues for regarding Dasein as a complete and indivisible being that enters into relations and intrinsically is a complete, unified, entity. There are multiple Dasein, which necessarily have some kind of relation to each other, whether warm and        friendly or hermitic or otherwise, and these relations are characterized by Heidegger as ‘Being-with’.

Zuhanden  - Slave-Being  

In a sense then with slave-being we do take the slave as zuhanden, ready-to-hand, useful, a tool for use.  In consensual slavery the slave agrees, wants, needs to be taken this way.  As dasein he/she is still being-in-the-world but in this case, the world is not his/her world, but her Master's world.  The slave is never merely an object, and in fact all 'objectification' of the slave is in reality de-subjectification, because the slave remains at the same time dasein and equipment, a tool and a being with its own sense of being, but the sense of being a tool in the equipmental totality of the Master's world.

Slave-Being 1 - Tool-Being

Slave-Being 1

Tool- Being

"
(1) entities do not manifest themselves as things (Latin:
[i]res[/i])

(2) the entities with which we deal with manifest
themselves as 'tools' in the wide sense of the Greek "pragmata"

The question now becomes 'what is the Being of this pragmata'?
This is the present task.

The clue for answering this
question lies in our understanding 'tools' as equipment (Zeug),
in our understanding "equipmentality."

Understanding
the structure of equipment:

[list]

(1) there can be no such expression as 'an' equipment -- a piece
of equipment is place within a totality, it is bound to an equipmental totality.

(2) Equipment is essentially
'something in order to...' e.g., a hammer is used in order to hammer
a nail, this, in turn, in order to build a shed -- in order to
provide shelter etc.

This indicates that 3) Equipment is involved in references and
assignments i.e., it is always involved in certain contexts:
e.g., a pen is involved in the context of ink-wells, pads, a desk,
lamp, being near a window etc.[Note that in our dealings with this equipmental totality our
primary relation is one of use [using equipment 'in order
to...']

And this provides the key for understanding the Being
of entities in this context --

They (entities as tools)
manifest themselves as ready-to-hand.

This is the
primary ontological category ascribed to entities dealt
with in the everyday world of our environment: Zuhandenheit
(readiness-to-hand).

****

Heidegger notes that
our peculiar manner in which we deal with these entities is
circumspection  and with this he indicates that
Dasein's active comportment to this categorical structure is one of circumspective concern (more of this later).

****

Heidegger
then proceeds to look further into this way in which we deal with
things ready-to-hand.

The Analysis deals with the notion of
work.

A reflection on the sense of "work" fills out
the notion of environment and the 'in order to...'

(1) The
'towards which' indicates the work to be produced e.g., a shoe, a
shed, etc. This, in turn, points beyond the immediate work
environment to the larger context of materials -- this, in turn,
involves the 'wider' environment of animals (and those who raise
them) and nature etc.

Also,

(2) the 'where of': the
purpose of the work (e.g., the purpose of making a shoe, a traffic
sign etc.)

This, in turn, points beyond the immediate work
environment to the user of the product and its material -- whether it
be one's own Dasein, or other Daseins, or the public world (a road
sign, etc.). Again, these notions tend to expand and make clear the
sense of the environment (Umwelt).

All of this goes to make
up the Unwelt -- and in this is located our relation to entities
which Heidegger has characterized as our dealings with things in
circumspective concern --

And the Being (i.e., the
ontological-categorical structure) of entities so involved is termed
readiness-to-hand..

****

But this has yet to become
explicit: For when we are caught up in our dealings, e.g., in using a
pen in order to write a paper for the purpose of giving a lecture,
one is not aware of the ontological structures underlying this work.

Situations and Limit Situations

Situations

When we do this we discover immediately that people are always connected to the world in a number of concrete ways. Heidegger (1927) in this context spoke of our 'thrownness'. He said that we are always thrown into a world that is already there to start with and into which we simply get
...amounts to the disclosedness of the fact that Dasein exists as thrown being towards its end. (Heidegger 1927:251)

In other words: death is part of me and to accept my living towards this end gives my life back to me in a new way.

Jaspers (1951, 1971) spoke of limit situations as those situations which define our humanity. Sooner or later we inevitably come up against guilt, death, pain, suffering and failure. The philosophical take on this is that it is more helpful to encourage people to come to terms with some of the inevitable conflicts and problems of living than to help them cover them up. Limit situations are what bring us in confrontation with ourselves in a decisive and fundamentally disturbing way. They evoke anxiety and therefore release us from our tendency to be untrue and evasive about ourselves and our lives.

inserted. It is important to recognize the factual situations that we are confronted with. We are part of a certain culture, a certain environment with a particular climate and history, a certain society and a specific situation. It is only within the givens of that situation that we can exercise our own choices. Sartre (1943) called this our facticity and he recognized that we can never release ourselves from this, even though we can choose our position in relation to it. In terms of psychotherapy it also means that it may be necessary to look at people's problems in a structural way. Instead of seeing everything as the person's psychological, emotional or internal problem, difficulties can be seen as part of an overall situation. Context is crucial and has to be taken into account.

Limit situations

Of all the situations in which we can find ourselves there are certain ones that are irrevocable. These situations have to be accepted and worked with. We cannot avoid them or overcome them: we have to learn to live with them. Heidegger emphasised the importance of death as a marker of our finite nature. Death in this sense is not to be taken as something happening to us at some point later, but as something that is relevant to us right now. The realities of our mortality and of our incompleteness have to be faced for us to become aware of and true to our nature, which is to be finite. Heidegger considered that the reality of our death is that it completes us. The recognition of the inevitability of death gives us a certainty that nothing else can give us. The fear in the face of death allows us to claim back our individuality, our authentic being, as we are inevitably alone in death and find ourselves much sobered and humbled by the knowledge of our mortality. Death, according to Heidegger:

...amounts to the disclosedness of the fact that Dasein exists as thrown being towards its end. (Heidegger 1927:251)

In other words: death is part of me and to accept my living towards this end gives my life back to me in a new way.

Jaspers (1951, 1971) spoke of limit situations as those situations which define our humanity. Sooner or later we inevitably come up against guilt, death, pain, suffering and failure. The philosophical take on this is that it is more helpful to encourage people to come to terms with some of the inevitable conflicts and problems of living than to help them cover them up. Limit situations are what bring us in confrontation with ourselves in a decisive and fundamentally disturbing way. They evoke anxiety and therefore release us from our tendency to be untrue and evasive about ourselves and our lives.

On a day when ...

... my back is killing me, I'm working from home and not getting much accomplished ... the girls are out at the doctor/drug store/market ... and wev else, I'm thinking about the issue of Mentally Interesting persons involved in D/s type relationships.

I had someone (a submissive) yesterday telling me why their husband couldn't dominate them them (whisper: he is bipolar). Ahem. So am I. In discussing it with her, though, it came out that he also has BPD. This is a very different matter as BPD's have emotional and not just mood issues. Let me clarify a bit as to what I mean by this.

Mood is defined by a philosopher of note to me as the self-disclosure of the current "how" of one's being. This is as much as to say, that when one asks how one "is", i.e. the question about the how of one's being, one is really asking about mood. Which is, in fact, pretty accurate. Emotions are different than moods from the get-go, because we have emotions in reaction to things, events, people, that are in-the-world.

Someone with emotional issues, then, is reactive to the world (and to him/herself) in a problematic way. This is not good for a Dominant. In terms of dominating someone one first has to be in control of one's reactions, and to a greater degree than most, because one's own actions and those of one's submissives will both tend to push one's buttons, assuming one has buttons to push.

There can be issues with having a bipolar Master, to be sure, such as inconsistency in different moods, and a tendency to be extreme and to expect extremes from one's submissives. But these issues can be dealt with, particularly if the submissives involved know mood extremes themselves and have similar tendencies. BPD is problematic, though, and I would expect that a BPD would have to have explored themselves to a very high degree, and probably in specific form have had very successful dialectical therapy, before one would wish to submit to their overly reactive personalities.

New Munch

We attended a munch for a group we hadn't been to prior to last night. It was a bit of an ego boost for me, as I discovered, partly due to somebody from another group reading it and being offended, that certain people I have great respect for in the community had been reading my wiki ( http://www.absoluteenslavement.com) and enjoying the writing on TPE/IE and absolute enslavement. Sometimes when you write something like a Wiki you're never sure if anyone reads it, certainly not if anyone enjoys it. It turned out that the person who disparaged it in another forum was also not particularly welcome at the munch last night for various reasons. He did however provide me with some fine advertising for the wiki and I have to be appreciative of that. As Oscar Wilde famously said "the only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about."

Psychology of Worldviews

I came across a few things while helping E. out with a paper on Gestalt Therapy. Not that I was much help except in the criticism department, which seems to be my specialty when it comes to E.'s interests :). This however caught my eye from an essay on Jaspers' Psychology of Worldviews:

"the construction of world views is not a merely neutral process, to be judged in non-evaluative manner. Instead, all world views contain an element of pathology; they incorporate strategies of defensiveness, suppression and subterfuge, and they are concentrated around false certainties or spuriously objectivized modes of rationality, into which the human mind withdraws in order to obtain security amongst the frighteningly limitless possibilities of human existence. World views, in consequence, commonly take the form of objectivized cages (Gehäuse), in which existence hardens itself against contents and experiences which threaten to transcend or unbalance the defensive restrictions which it has placed upon its operations. Although some world views possess an unconditioned component, most world views exist as the limits of a formed mental apparatus"

There is a freedom from anxiety about these limitless possibilities that is the gift of absolute subjugation. This freedom is the cause of the drop in reactance that the submissive experiences in the full acceptance of his/her enslavement.

Discipline and Punishment

In one of my earliest posts to this blog I talked about the conundrum of how to punish a masochist.  As it happens this worked itself out over the period during which I didn't post much to the blog, and I never got around to explicating any of it.

There's a "mode" one has to get into in order to punish, it's a mode
that involves "knowing" that you know better than the person you're
punishing, people find that easier with children, obviously, than with
adults   If you look at Tanos' site, the focus on "Internal
Enslavement" seems to focus on the slave's mindset, which is of course
important.  When mitda or emmie are being punished they are in a
different headspace than when they're being played.  But my
introduction of the term "Absolute" or "Total" Subjugation is important
because it deals with the mindset and headspace of the Master.  (Tanos does include this of course, it's only the term that seems to focus on the slave's doing, not the site or his thoughts on the matter)  In
order for the slave to get into her mindset, the Master has to be in
his, and it's a difficult thing at first to accomplish.  If you look at
my earliest blog entries there was the conundrum of how to punish a
masochist, and it took time to solve, but it has to do with getting
into a certain zone and making that felt to the slave.



First, as I said, you have to "know" that you're right, or that you
know better, than the slave.  This is difficult to do with someone that
you love and respect as an adult on the same level as your own.  You
have to know you know better because, simply, you are the Master in the
situation and it is your world and your set of meanings that are the
crucial ones.  The slave, in her enslavement, has given up the set of
meanings she had, what she accepted previously as her truth, and
accepted your reality as hers.  As a result, although she might be as
intelligent and capable as you are, she doesn't know the terrain as
well as you do, and within the dynamic in any disagreement she is
always in the wrong, because you are the arbiter of what is right and
wrong to begin with.  She needs this grounding by you as much as you
need to ground things in this way.  

Second, you need to get this world, this set of meanings, across to her
and put her in the situation where she knows that no matter what she
believed prior to her enslavement, she is now completely in the wrong
and needs to be punished to set her straight and remind her of where
her ground and truth are.  Partly I talk to emmie and mitda constantly
about the way I view things and the way things are for me, and must be
for them.  But truth lies in manifestation, and having things manifest
to the slave in the way they manifest to you is the key.  Human beings
share a world and share the way things manifest to a greater or lesser
degree depending on how close they are - and this phenomenon is what
people mean when they refer to "relating" to someone.  Physical contact
I've found is a key - standing at a distance and touching the slave
only when you hit them doesn't bring them into your space, you need to
break the slave's personal space by being as close to them as possible,
touching them with your free hand, and letting them feel the punishment
implement prior to and between hits, so that they know it's an
extension of your hand and your will.