Master, Slave, Humanness and Truth

In the crossing from conceptual thinking to inceptual, truth interpreted as relational and externally founded (correspondence theory of truth) is initially rejected by Nietszche as mere valuation, and not the 'highest' value. But with the second Nietszche remains wedded to the notion of valuation in general. Valuation goes hand in hand with the nature of technological (metaphysical, conceptual) revealing of beings in general. The enframing nature of technological revealing requires a posited identity between differentiable things, in order to be able to 'have' them at one's disposal - as a resource any given example is equivalent to any other of that type.


Nietszche then brings in the valuation of humanness as rank. Truth as valuation renders the difference null, they are both 'human resources'. Within any enforced Master/slave pairing the metaphysical notion of truth is always advantageous to those looking up. Maintaining the differentiation though is not merely in the Master's interest but in the interest of undermining valuation in general.


Within consensual Master/slave dynamics the metaphysical valuation is disadvantageous to both, since it renders them effectively equal, and their dynamic is posited on inequality as in itself desirable. Truth is re-posited in an inceptual manner, as the self-presentation of something to a human being, and thus founded on humanness in general.

Mastery / slavery ? Digressions in Terminology

How the more extreme forms of domination and submission oriented dynamics acquired the terminology "Master/slave" is an odd question at first glance, and one related to another form of terminology, that of "Owner/property".


A slave, defined by being-owned, would by definition have an owner. One who owned a human being would by definition have a slave, owning simple "property" would not distinguish one from any other in our current society. Masters in various areas of endeavour might have servants, novices, acolytes, initiates, apprentices, etc. But in the specific area of consensual slavery the slave's owner appropriates the designation "Master". Seemingly in reaction to the ability and responsibility mastery requires, some in domination/submission dynamics opt out of the issue of what mastery entails, preferring to return to simple ownership, but the simulaneous reduction of human property ("slave") to just "property" signals a felt lack, as if owning a human being without mastery is somehow inappropriate.


Consensual slavery has multiple defining features, but one of the principle features is a vow of obedience that overrules further need for consent, in most cases perpetual, at least in intention. Perpetual vows of obedience are found in a number of other areas of human endeavour, but are most associated with the religious life. Within many religious orders a vow of obedience to the order is prescribed. While it is unusual today, vows of obedience to a particular person were at one time also common within Christianity as in other religions.


The justification for vows of obedience within specifically Christian theology stemmed from the limited perspective available to any given individual, together with the notion that community ameliorated that limitation and provided a brake on unconstrained and potentially mistaken willing by the individual.


Will as Will to Power, in the consummation of metaphysics and therefore Christianity itself, however, is the term for the essence of being itself, rather than a specific faculty of a specific being. As the essence of being itself the slave's being is as fully Will to Power as the Owner's. Rather than ameliorating the expression of Will to Power, the being of the community, religious or otherwise, is also Will to Power. A vow of obedience could not in post Nietzschean terms accomplish any constraining of the Will to Power but would simply make the perspective panoramic, and as panoramic all the more perspectival.


A vow of obedience, as central to the slave's being-a-slave, and hence the slave's expression of Will to Power, serves two other purposes. First the vow is a shield against the tempting, in particular the most tempting itself. Second it is the focus for the more understanding and creative expression of that will demanded by its continuing alignment with the will of the Master.

It is in the radicality of the demand of obedience that it functions as a shield against the tempting. "The most tempting itself" is an odd phrase at first - temptation is often conflated with desire, yet in a sense it opposes and frustrates the pursuit of that which is most desired itself. Temptation diverts from the pursuit of desire as much as from the pursuit of perfection, or any other particular pursuit. As the "most" tempting fundamental temptation is something we always find ourselves in in advance. Radical obedience, in either expectation or fulfillment, opposes the most tempting in an essential way because it is an extraordinary expectation, and an extraordinary thing to attempt. "The most tempting", the founding temptation in which we always find ourselves immersed is essentially the temptation of the mediocre, the averageness of everyday understanding and levelling off any distinctions that might threaten that tranquillizing mediocrity of everydayness itself.

Expecting this kind of vow implictly requires a sense of one's own unique abilities, a sense that develops with mastery of those abilities itself, a sense that breaks and continually re-breaks the temptation towards a tranquilizing common mediocrity. Consenting to such a vow requires an honouring of the uniqueness of the Master's abilities that accomplishes the same severing from the temptation to mediocrity.

Obedience in an M/s Relationship

Within non-consensual slavery begun by the initial consent to becoming-a-slave, to obey is to hear and to follow-after the words of the Master. Following-after cannot be conceptualized, turned into a program that could be justifiable ethically or otherwise. To follow-after according to one's understanding is to negate following-after as obedience. Instead following-after involves obedience to what is at that moment beyond the understanding: blind in terms of comprehensibility, revelatory and immediately factical. Performing any act without the mediation of the understanding requires absolute trust and courage. It is a way of being resulting from one decision, and not a continual decision-making stance. There is no temporal cause / effect relationship between hearing and obeying, it is one and the same act.

Proper obedience as following-after negates the systematic and the conceptual apparatus of the understanding in an unjustifiable manner that brings together hearing and obeying as one movement. In following-after the words of the Master are heard-obeyed in a way that may negate even the teachings of the Master, since any such teachings would have to be interpreted anew by the slave rather than the Master. Interpretation and the resulting understanding is dispensed with in favour of a direct hearing-obeying of something said in a shared place, a sharing in which the self itself is the shared.

In hearing-obeying the words of the Master the slave responds to an external ground that names the way in which the slave's identity as a slave is formed and develops. The ground of following-after is outside the slave, shared by the Master through the sharing of the Master's own being-there, a being-there-with the slave. It belongs to the Master inherently as the slaving of the slave. A slave cannot supply the grounding - in being-a-slave and following the words of the Master the slave is moved according to the words of the Master in every specific facticity. This grounding is necessarily a grounding in the abyss brought about by not-understanding, where the void at the base of the slave's being allows the immediate presencing of the Master's will to the slave. It expresses the sheer facticity of belonging, a facticity that places the slave in the originary historicity of being-a-slave as having-become-a-slave. As such, obedience defines the slaving of the slave, thereby defining the slave as being-a-slave in the factical situation.

The slaving of the slave is the root of the historicity of being-a-slave. The radicality of this personal position is only to be uncovered within the progression initiated by having-become-a-slave. The courage required by such radicality is the courage that makes the slaving of a slave a constantly demanding and difficult task. The commanding that the slave hears-obeys is itself revelatory of the Master's being-a-master to that slave in all its particularity and within its own historicity of having-become-a-master to that slave.

Direction and Directives

Is it enough for Mastery that a slave obey his / her Master's directives, while his / her thoughts, desires and will remain free? Or does the act of directing implicitly require that the directed align those thoughts, desires and will with that of the Master?

In directing the Master points in a direction and sets the slave moving in that direction. This of course requires that the Master have a perspective from which to direct. The perspective itself comes from the positing of viewpoints inherent in mastery, power itself is perspectival in the sense that it is always an empowering of overpowering, a will towards a horizon, enacted through the slave, that comes back to itself in the slave's obedience and the Master's self obedience.

The slave's obedience in merely accomplishing the activity is never sufficient in itself to satisfy power. At best it can allow power to be maintained, but power is always overpowering as mastery - mastery of the slave and self mastery. If it is only maintained as measure it dwindles temporally. Mastery must empower its own overpowering and for this it requires the overpowering of its perspective itself via the merging of the slave's will with its own, the merging of viewpoints into one panoramic perspective.

Directives are obeyed by the slave in the sense of moving in that direction, but they empower the will of the Master when the directive's viewpoint and perspective are adopted, such that the slave's obedience returns and empowers the Master's self obedience. In this the directive reaches its panoramic completion, empowering further perspectives, viewpoints, and directives.

The Enchantment of the Extreme

One thing that I've tried to be clear in discussing M/s with other subgroups within the BDSM community is that I don't consider M/s "higher" or "more developed" than other relationship types, but I do consider it more *extreme". While many are wary (for good reason) of extremes I believe the extreme carries with it its own special fascination.

Nietzsche talks about "us immoralists" as the "outermost", the extreme. As such "we" do not need the lies of other powers. All other powers are force hiding behind the semblance of law, hence lying and dissimulation are necessary to veil true intentions, to display goals that are ostensibly sought after, and so make the subjugated happy.

Within the M/s dynamic, Masters refer to themselves as such, slaves know themselves as slaves. There is no false set of goals promulgated by the Master in order to underhandedly subjugate the slave. There is no expectation of eventual equality or even a specific reward for servitude to be sought after. The power differential is decided on in advance, and maintained and welcomed by both sides. The extremism of the dynamic, far from putting people off, exerts a powerful fascination, seduction and enchantment.

The "magic" of the extreme is the power of the most powerful. Most powerful because it hides behind no false pretenses of humility. Masters do not seek power over slaves "in the slave's interest", nor govern "as servants" (think public servants). We seek power solely and purely for its own sake and enjoyment. Slaves do not submit to their enslavement in order to gain a future advantage. This power transports members of the dynamic to another world with its enchantment and there brings them to themselves in a different way.

Who are, then, "we immoralists"? Are we an unethical gang of bandits on the fringes of society? No, we immoralists are those who stand outside the distinction between the true and the apparent worlds promulgated by metaphysics, and the hierarchy of moral rules and values that sustains it. We stand outside the distinction that sustained metaphysics and all its correlates, instead standing in the seduction of truth. We know that ethics is always concrete, always particular to the situation and are not confused by childish a priori rules.

Topology and M/s

In the topology of an M/s situation the members are situated in such a manner that the "between" of each member's place is the conjoining of the members themselves, in that they are not isolated subject-things but are the "open" that creates the place in which they can appear to one another as the people they are. As a result there is no "between" in the common sense of a space between objects (subjects) but a shared place that is constituted by the members themselves. Each "place", and the situation-place as a whole has differences that imply what is appropriate for each member as far as duties and comportment to the other members and to any other beings that appear in that clearing. Since there is nothing fundamentally relational about the topology I dislike referring to it as a relationship.

Each M/s topology, as well, is unique, being a topology of the individuals within it and their proper places. The event of appropriation itself determines what "proper" means in this instance, made more explicit through the alternative translation as the pairing of enownment/enslavement.

The underlying difference between the Master and slave in their comportment is that the Master's comportment is always firstly a listening, while the slave's is always firstly a hearing. The similarity is intentional, but the implied difference is crucial. Hearing, horen in anglo saxon, meant both to hear and to obey, with no differentiation. A proper hearing, then, implies obedience. The Master, though, listens. Any speaking, especially an ordering speaking, is simultaneously a careful listening. The care taken in the listening is what determines the appropriateness of the ordering. Without careful listening the ordering is arbitrary and leads to tyranny rather than mastery.

Mitdasein and Enslavement

"Mitsein and Mitdasein are posited as co-essential to Dasein's essence,that is,to its property as an existent for which Being is not its ontological foundation but rather the bringing into play of its own sense of Being as well as of the sense of Being itself. Therefore, Being-with, and more precisely Being-there-with,constitutes an essential condition for Dasein's essence."

"This is a property of Dasein as da-sein, as Being-the there:it is,or rather,it has to be the ''there''of an opening, that is,of its own(or in each case its own) way of letting itself be or of deciding to be according to this exposition which is also its Being-in-the-world.

.(Let/decide:two faces,two possibilities or two aspects of the same exposition.)

Dasein has to be the singular ''there'' of an ownmost way of wording that is of making and/or opening onto a totality of sense. In sum, the da of sein is its exposition. Therefore,one can say Dasein is a singular, unique possibility of making/letting an ownmost sense of the world and/or the world of an ownmost sense open itself. This sense has as an essential property; its ultimate sense in its own suppression. Death,or the cessation of this da, means as well that the da does not open onto anything but its own opening. To assume this horizon, which is precisely not a horizon, to assume the finite

horos of an infinite apeiron , is exactly what is at stake in Dasein's Being at stake.In sum,is it the making mine of that which cannot be mine,or the letting myself be disappropriated at and from the fullest point of mineness(an inverted version of the Hegelian death)."

- Nancy, Jean-Luc - The being-with of being-there

Moreover, Dasein is essentially Mitdasein. This means that Mitsein is essential to Dasein : it is a Being-with unlike the putting together of things, but an essential with , intrinsic to Dasein's own Being..

That Dasein is also and essentially Mitdasein ensconces the relationship between Master and slave with the there of the Master's da. Since the Master opens that world and invites the slave to be an integral part of it, joining their own da, their being, or in Nietszche's term, their will, to that of the Master, Mitdasein provides the shared space, meaning, and equipmental totality that allows both the Master and slave to "be" in an appropriate place and manner.

Discourse of Mastery and Unlimited Responsibility

"

Unlimited responsibility is both a theme that pervades the space of intersection in which


Heidegger and his best readers meet, and also the challenge that Heidegger offers us in reading him. Heidegger is one of 'the few and the rare' who set a standard by which even those who disagree with him may be judged.

"

• 
  

  
  
  
  David Wood, Thinking After Heidegger.
  
  
  

  
  

One of the things that caught my attention in reading this book was it's wariness of anything that might resemble a "discourse of mastery". It interested me because, in my terms, vom Ereignis could be translated as "from Mastery", as much as "from Enowning" or "from the Event of Appropriation". Heidegger does certainly mean the term in multvalent ways, but the intersection of mastery, particularly the discourse of mastery, with unlimited responsibility seems like an appropriate place to begin

What, fundamentally, is wrong with a discourse of mastery? Mastery involves many things, not the least mastery-over in the sense of over another. This is where, I believe, mastery becomes problematic in a postmodern scenario. Mastery over another without their choosing is the real issue, rather than mastery over another in general. Without a common goal the postmodern situation is indeed an-archic, and this an-arche can and should precede any defined and chosen arche, or goal (telos). So a discourse of mastery that doesn't accept its own limitations and does not choose its own field of endeavour is precisely to be avoided. In other words, WIITWD is solely and simply for us meaning myself, mitda, and emmie, and any discourse that comes out of it can only be judged as it applies to our situation. Applying it elsewhere is to be done at the reader's peril and only to the degree that it resonates with the reader's own state of being.

Unlimited responsibility, then, is itself a chosen situation, or a decided event. Why would a master choose to be a Master, if it implies unlimited responsibility? Because that responsibility is the appropriate response to his/her slave's giving up their self-ownership. Dasein (human being-there) is always, in the first instance, mine to each individual. Only in that situation of personal freedom can a truly consensual giving up of freedom occur. Only to the degree that my slaves were their own persons can they give up that ownership, in which they enown their Master to mastery in the first place. And only in a situation of personal freedom can the Master enslave the slave and take ownership of his/her being-there. This is the foundation of our Mitdasein (being-there-with) in which we choose and have chosen to exist. From the beginning this unlimited responsibility was the focus of my longing, the prize for which I endeavoured to become who I am. I didn't 'accept' unlimited responsibility 'in return for' my slaves' being-there, I responded to their giving of their dasein with the willful and appropriate response of appropriating their responsibility in an unlimited manner.

Kinky Wilde-isms

These are posted without attribution ... since attribution would only indicate a nickname on an anonymous site.

kink is the refuge of homely, limited people; but the ruin of attractive,
talented ones.

after illusion, perversity is the greatest of life's pleasures, and the
preoccupation of genius.

there is no such thing as a "kinky" or "vanilla" person; people are either
interesting and charming--or boring and charmless.

polygamy is having too many partners; monogamy is exactly the same.

Kinksters refuse to be constrained by the pointless rules and expectations of
mundane society, preferring to be constrained by the pointless rules and
expectations of other kinksters.

To regain consciousness in a paramedic ambulance after ONE play session is
merely an accident; for it to happen TWICE is outright carelessness.

I like talking to brick walls, doormats and my property; the only things in
the world that don't dare contradict me.

a little submission is a charming thing; a great deal of it, grotesque.

ownership and control-freakishness are really the same thing.

other masters and slaves are quite phony; the only genuine ones are me and
mine.

A man in his vice is an ugly thing, a woman in it is heavenly.

Sadist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.

The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world. 

"patio": the name breathplayers give to their mistakes

Consensuality is the last refuge of the timid.

I like women better than clothes, and I like women with no clothes better than
anything else in the world.

The only difference between pain and ecstasy is attitude.

A Man's face is his autobiography; his sub's ass is his blog.

Blind ambition is an excellent start, ballgagged ambition is better.

The moment a Dominant must declare he has the authority in a situation he has
lost it.

To see yourself in your submissive is the product of incessant narcissism, or
fantastic oral.

If one could merely teach submissives how to talk, and dominants how to
listen, FetLife would be quite civilized.

People are not good or bad, they are merely charming or Gorean.

The ability to whimper is a serviceable substitute for passion.

It is better to stay silent and be thought a fool, than to be punished for
speaking without permission.

There's a love that dare not speak its name; sadly, there's also a love that
won't ever shut the fuck up.

Many bdsm intimacies begin on the internet. and end in disaster.

There are many men a woman will submit to just to get rid of them.

"I've had a lovely beating... But this wasn't it".

I no longer attend play-parties; some of the women look as if they were poured
into their corsets and forgot to say "when!"

Many slaves are so grotesquely unattractive that I must resist the urge to flog
their mothers.

You can tell a lot about a man's background and breeding from the cut of his
assless chaps.

He wears his leathers as if they were thrown on him with a pitchfork

There's no way to distinguish between a good pro domme and a bad one. sooner
or later, out pops the fat ass.

She was raised in a poly household. they were too poor to practice monogamy.

If a "piece of property" wants to remain with her owner, all she has to do is
cater to what is most ugly in him.

Fetishes do not cease to be funny when people die any more than they cease to
be serious when people laugh.

24/7 master/slave is the marriage of meanness and martyrdom

bdsm divides people into sadists and masochists, or dominants and submissives;
it has no category for the truly original and unique.

bdsm with a woman is sometimes a vast improvement over wanking; but it takes
more imagination than most people have to really make it work

there is no sadder creatrue in the world than a woman who craves a man's
spanking but has to settle for the whole man

bdsm "morality" is like a sexually-transmitted disease; the first stage is
called "honor, the second stage "honesty", the final stage "community".

there are many unfortunate women in bdsm who have to play mommy in order to
hang on to their daddy

romantics place their loves on a pedestal; sadists tie them across it

masters are the bosses in their homes; their slaves merely make all the
decisions

when their "property" demands release, most owners swing into action; they
immediately clean out the cage for rental.

People ask who is more imaginative, male dominants or female dominants? If you
ask me, the most imaginative creature is the male submissive who arrives late
to see a domme.

perversity is the daddy of invention

if sex is the spice of life, than sadism is the industrial acid

it's fortunate that most bdsm "mentors" are too stupid to conceal their
dishonesty with deceit

I will never tolerate being called "master" in my own home

I have no issues with most doms calling themselves "sir", "lord" or "master";
after all, they are all napoleons of stupid.

I will never pay for porn nor support FL; I have no intention of bolstering
the capitalist system.

I have tremendous respect for her; she worked herself up from homeless teenage
runaway to beta-slave in a leather family

_many women face a terrible dilemma on FL; is he cheating on his wife or
hiding from his mother?

what's the point of having a switch if you can't turn her on and off?

There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a real slave, it's a thing
that no Master knows anything about.

the amount of female gossip on these threads is shocking. it's like washing
one's dirty hitachi in public.

self-control is an essential element of a dominant's character; it allows one
to peruse FL pix without bursting into laughter or puking.

the problem with human "property" is not that it depreciates, but that you
can't even recycle it.

living with an extreme mascochist is not for the frugal; your water and
electrical bills go through the roof

If it's not cheating as long as your spouse doesn't know, is your spouse
really filing for divorce if you don't know?

pervs confess to their more harmless fetishes in order to conceal the truly
sick ones

for most people, virtues are vices in disguise; for pervs, it's the opposite

neither the sun nor death nor a fat slob in leather can be looked at with
unflinching gaze

I only engage in pervy sex to remind myself I'm not the center of the universe

the real art of topping is to know how far you can go too far

your problems getting laid are not necessarily due to gender politics

it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like jay wiseman

To have one's fist stuck inside a dubious girl, may be regarded as a
misfortune; to have both stuck looks like carelessness.

never judge a person by the clothes (s)he wears; never judge fetish-clothing
by the person wearing them

if clothes make the man, fetish-clothing usually ruins him

riding a new york city subway is perfect prepartion for attending a new york
city fetish-party

if FL wants to attract an even edgier crowd, it should be renamed as
facefuckbook

slaves are like sphinxes without secrets, but at least they have noses.

male sadists can often be very humble people, except when their ejaculate goes
to their heads

I no longer attend dungeon parties. I dislike the feeling of deja-flog

it's not a good idea to fall asleep when whipping someone, though it's often
difficult to stay awake

I'm in favor of capital punishment, as long as it's between consenting adults

a dom with a beltful of floggers is like a frenchman with a chestful of medals

a legend in his own toy-bag...

my fetish is nursing-home sex; you wait inside all day and nobody comes.

when a maso woman says "you're breaking my heart", it's usually with a tone of
admiration

the critical period in establishing a polygamous household is breakfast

most people become confused when they get "things all mixed up"; d/s people
are more likely to blot out all reason and memory

a genuine male dominant makes a woman either shudder or surrender

dominance complicates a man's character and simplifies his submissive's

A true gentleman is someone who never leaves a mark unintentionally

I disapprove of the way you dress, but I will defend to the death your right
to dress that way--once I stop laughing uncontrollably

he has the sort of bdsm experience that only comes from years of experimenting
on rubber dolls

many people on FL complain about "drama"; that's because they have no talent
for it--buffonery, slapstick, vaudeville and farce are all they're capable of.

A true sadist is one who can hit harder than a masochist can stand. A true
masochist is one who can find such a sadist.

We can forgive those who know less than we do. We cannot forgive those who
know more than we do.

I once spent a year at a leather household -- I think it was a Sunday.

Masters spend the first part of training teaching you how to walk and talk, and
the rest of it telling you to sit down and shut up.

when weird creatures at some fetish party waddle up to me and introduce
themselves as "Lady Gusset" or "Lord Merkin" or whatever, my reply is always
the same: "That's ok. I'm sure its not your fault."

By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, FetLife keeps us in touch with
the ignorance of the community.

One's FetLife is so often the life that one does not lead.

The one charm about 24/7 bdsm is that it makes a life of deception absolutely
necessary for all parties.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are playing with our slave's tits.

When good kinksters die, they go to Berlin.

Submissives begin by resisting a Dom's advances and end by blocking his
retreat.

Submissives are made to be beaten, not understood.

I feel most at home in the kink community, not because it is intrinsically
more interesting, but because no one really belongs there any more than I do.
We are all there together in its wholly excellent vacuum.

Dominants were only made into such with great difficulty: the Dom is not
naturally dominant any more than the submissive. He has to be propped up into
that position with some ingenuity, and is always likely to collapse.

A Master, like his cousin the college professor, becomes one because it's a
great excuse to stop learning anything.

The Anonymous Referential Contexture

" A brief while ago, we recalled both the invisibility and the totality of the tool, traits that emerged from Heidegger's own account of equipment. These features described the character of entities in themselves, their primary mode of being, and not just the primary way in which people encounter them. Obviously, if entities were invisible and total in the strict sense, we would not encounter individual beings at all. All objects would fade away into an instantaneous, global action- a system without organs. But experience shows that we do encounter singular entities; life is absorbed in nothing but such specific beings: sun, melons, puppets. How does Heidegger account for this duality? The most famous place is in the discusion of the 'broken tool'. The working piece of equipment is unobtrusive; in contrast, the malfunctioning instrument thrusts itself rudely into view. In this new, "broken" situation, we gain a view of what was previously taken for granted. Equipment is no longer a silent laborer; it has surfaced as a visible power. It is a tool which has suddenly reversed into tool 'as' tool. The visible world is the world of the 'as', a tangible and volatile surface that has been derived from a more primary dimension of being.

The realm of the broken tool is the realm of the 'as'. But just as the term "equipment" could not be limited to tools in the narrow sense, so the broken tool quickly reaches beyond the strict boundaries suggested by its name. Even a rough examination will show that Heidegger begins to define virtually everything in the same way as his concept of the broken tool. Space, for example, comes to be defined as nothing other than the freeing of entities from the anonymous referential contexture, in such a way that they take on a specific unique location of their own;"

- Phenomenology and the Theory of

Equipment

By Graham Harman

© 1997

If it is merely the "malfunctioning" piece of equipment that primordially reveals the as-structure that we call " world", the sum total of meanings both shared and private that we hold, and that this type of revelation also applies to things such as location in space, concept in theory, and a host of other things, then in some way the undifferentiated primordial "da" must also be shared in order for a being-there-with to be at all possible. How do we at all share an "anonymous referential contexture" except by virtue that thrownness into the world is an equiprimordial structure of Dasein's being, along with Being-in-the-world, Being-the-there, Being-there-with and the other existentials analysed in Being and Time (Heidegger, 1929).

In this sense the Master and slave are equivalent, both finding themselves thrown into a world in which they can only make sense, meaning, by isolating specific things as those specific things from out of the anonymous referential contexture. What is different in the dominant vs submissive mindset is the ownership of those islands of sense.

A Tale of Chantix and Psychosis

I've been AWOL on the blogging recently, mainly because I tried to quit smoking using Chantix ® . Suffice it to say this is not the drug for those with mood stabilization issues. I spent four days that I barely remember in and out of psychosis. Not that I'm saying this drug doesn't work to help others quit, but for a bipolar with psychosis it's a recipe for disaster. By Friday I apparently threw up all over the bed, leaving emmie to clean up, which she had terrific difficulty with as she is not fond of bodily fluids. I have no memory of it. I have little memory really of the whole episode – nothing I took helped (and I have a cornucopia of antipsychotic drugs at my disposal) – but finally I slept so much on the last day that I never got around to taking the anti-smoking drug. Lo and behold, I got better, immediately better. Apparently the FDA wants to put a stronger warning on the drug, I say definitely do, and put something in the warning about bipolars, hey, we're people too!

Munch and Play Time

This weekend is the big play party (for us, at any rate - there is a bigger one but it's not really our scene). I'd like to play with both mitda and emmie but it is sometimes exhausting to play with more than one slave, especially in a (relatively) public space.

Apparently mitda does want to play with other people so I could let her do that and play with emmie. At the same time emmie might not mind the reprieve as she is does not so much enjoy pain but instead likes to please.

I will think on it some more between now and the party. There is a munch the night before which will be enjoyable as the group usually has a good conversational atmosphere.

Nurturing

At times the Master's role is to protect, to nurture, rather than opening up a World to the slave. It is in the hidden roots in the earth that things grow and mature, and come to fruition. Pushing the slave into doing things to boost his/her confidence, and promote his/her abilities by giving room for trial and error, failure and eventual success, is a major part of this nurturing process. Stepping out from what we already know into those areas that have remained opaque and mysterious grows the slave into a fuller human being and more valuable property.

Presence, Presencing, Presentation and Being

In terms of Being and Place, Topoi, it seems necessary to work out the differences at play between Presence, Presencing, and Presentation. Beings have presence, that is to say they are present in the present and abide by for a while. Presencing is the event of presence, therefore the event of the Being of any particular being, it's uncovering, its truth. Presentation is the situation within which the being may presence, and different beings may presence in different situations. Being itself is the hidden core of presentation, the point of excess that always threatens the situation with its overabundance. As punctual Being is the limit of the limit-situation itself.

The Situation, State of the Situation, and Training

To every Situation there exists a metastructure, the State of the Situation. This reduplication of the count-as-one of the multiplicitous Situation serves to protect the Situation's unity from the danger of the point-of-excess, the Void, or Being. In a nation the State's laws and regulations decide what is permissible and possible in the Situation - “Sitere” originally meant ot let, or permit. But the State is not merely an image of the situation. There are elements of the situation not contained in the State, and elements in the State's image that are extraneous to the situation. These elements, respectively, are the Singular and the Excrescent.

In the M/s Situation the State is represented by the authority of the Master. When I claim a shared Situation with my slaves it is my reduplication of the Situation that is shared along with it, with my interpretations, as-structure, and meaning. However my slaves always have things “of their own” that are not part of the State, but still belong to the Situation. Incorporating these things into the State of the Situation when they are singular, and driving them out of the Situation when they are excrescent, is at the heart of slave training. By careful repetition the purview on the World that the Master possesses is imprinted on the slave, until he/she cannot experience that which the Master does not permit to be experienced. Governance, then, becomes a tightening of the grip on the slave's very World-experience, performed in the safe, protecting, nurturing cover of the Master's secure hand.

Topology and M/s

“Place”, Topos, is always the proper place of some “thing” or some “one”. To bring into the proper place is the full meaning of appropriate used as a verb, rather than the common usage of to “take”. While I certainly do “take” mitda and emmie as slaves, it is truer to say that I appropriate them and in so doing bring them to their appropriate places. This “event of appropriation” is one way of translating Heidegger's Ereignis, the other way is “Enowning”, and the event of appropriation is in fact how one comes to enown another. That this requires enacting on the part of the slave as well as the Master should be obvious in the enowning/enslaving dialectic that takes place. Topologically a map is drawn of our combined being such that mitda and emme “belong” to the multiple Mitdasein. They of course are multiples themselves, so the set is always a set of multiples. I don't call the set by my real name, but by Mitdasein, because Mitdasein intimates the shared being we have together. As Master, I am of course Mitdasein, but they are integral to my Mitdasein as those with whom I share the Da, the “there”, the World.

Mastery vom Ereignis

To situate means to place, to put in it's (own) place. M/s situates both the Master and slave by placing them in their appropriate places relative to one another. My slaves are slaves in relation to me, not to anyone else. There is no expectation, other than general politeness, for them to act slavely to anyone else. By the same token I have no expectation of being a Master to anyone else. By enslaving them they have enowned me (enabled to own) and in a strong sense we are enowned over to each other. Via Mastery of philosophy Heidegger was able to write “vom Ereignis” or “from Enowning”, I can also write “vom Ereignis” through the deference shown me by mitda and emmie, but my Mastery is limited to their persons.

Feeling Blah thought Things Are GOOD

I've been really fighting a bad mood today. No really, I have been trying to be reasonably cheerful when every little thing is a monstrouis irritation. I've taken Ativan to no avail, put on relaxing music, even had a bath; nothing seems to be helping. The kidlet is a huge and near constant source of annoyance for me. I think because he watches so much TV or plays video games he thinks he needs a soundtrack of his life to go with whatever he's doing. So he babbles, sings off pitch and asks annoying questions constantly. Of course he's only 9 and has his issues. But I find myself wishing sometimes he has the autistic trait of being non-verbal, rather than overwhelmingly verbal as he currently is :).

Things aren't going so badly though really. House Daedalus has dealt with what seemed an insurmountable debt crisis by simply working out better terms with creditors (thank Luc and emmie for that), and we managed to scrounge enough cash from family to be solvent until I get a paycheque. With all that relief there maybe came a let down of adrenaline leading to this miserable mood.