|
Second EssayGuilt, Bad Conscience and Related Matters17
Inherent in this hypothesis about the origin of bad conscience is, firstly, the assumption that this change was not gradual or voluntary and did not manifest an organic growth into new conditions, but was a break, a leap, something forced, an irrefutable disaster, against which there was no struggle nor any resentment. Secondly, it assumes that the adaptation of a populace which had hitherto been unchecked and shapeless into a fixed form was initiated by an act of violence and was carried to its conclusion by nothing but sheer acts of violence, that consequently the very oldest "State" emerged as a terrible tyranny, as an oppressive and inconsiderate machinery and continued working until such a raw materials of people and half-animals finally was not only thoroughly kneaded and submissive but also given a shape.
I used the word "State" - it is self-evident who is meant by that term - some pack of blond predatory animals, a race of conquerors and masters, which, organized for war and with the power to organize, without thinking about it sets its terrifying paws on a subordinate population which may perhaps be vast in numbers but is still without any shape, is still wandering about. That`s surely the way the "State" begins on earth. I believe that that fantasy has been done away with which sees the beginning of the state in some "contract." The man who can command, who is naturally a "master," who comes forward with violence in his actions and gestures - what has a man like that to do with making contracts! We cannot negotiate with such beings. They come like fate, without cause, reason, consideration, or pretext. They are present as lightning is present, too fearsome, too sudden, too convincing, too "different" even to become hated. Their work is the instinctive creation of forms, the imposition of forms. They are the most involuntary and unconscious artists in existence. Where they appear something new is soon present, a living power structure, something in which the parts and functions are demarcated and coordinated, in which there is, in general, no place for anything which does not first derive its "meaning" from its relationship to the totality .
These men, these born organizers, have no idea what guilt, responsibility, and consideration are. In them that fearsome egotism of the artist is in charge, which stares out like bronze and knows how to justify itself for all time in the "work," just like mother with her child. They are not the ones in whom "bad conscience" grew - that point is obvious. But this hateful plant would not have grown without them. It would have failed if an immense amount of freedom had not been driven from the world under the pressure of their hammer blows - or at least driven from sight and, as it were, had become latent. This powerful instinct for freedom, once made latent (we already understand how), this instinct driven back, repressed, imprisoned inside, and finally able to discharge and direct itself only against itself - that and that alone is what bad conscience is in its beginnings.
|
