crichton: Yes, my lord, it is. That is what I have been striving to -point out to your lordship.
—j. m. barrie, The Admirable Crichton
Defined abstracdy, a master is one who gives orders and a servant is one who obeys orders. This characteristic makes the master-servant relationship peculiarly suitable as an expression of the inner life, so much of which is carried on in imperatives. If a large lady carelessly, but not intentionally, treads on my com during a subway rush hour, what goes on in my mind can be expressed dramatically as follows:
self : (in whom the physical sensation of pain has he- come the mental passion of anger): "Care for my anger! Do something about it!"
cognitive ego: "You are angry because of the pain caused by this large lady who, carelessly but not intentionally, has trodden on your com. If you decide
to relieve your feelings, you can give her a sharp kick on the ankle without being noticed." self : "Kick her."
super-ego: (to simplify matters, let us pretend that super-ego and conscience are identical, which they are not):
"Unintentional wrongs must not be avenged. Ladies must not be kicked. Control your anger!" lady: (noticing what she has done):
"I beg your pardon! I hope I didn't hurt you." self: "Kick her!"
super-ego: "Smile! Say 'Not at all, Madam.' " volitional ego: (to the appropriate voluntary muscles):
either "Kick her!"
or "Smile! Say 'Not at all, Madam!' "
Of my five "characters," only one, my cognitive ego, really employs the indicative mood. Of the others, my self and my super-ego cannot, either of them, be a servant. Each is a master who is either obeyed or disobeyed. Neither can take orders. My body, on the other hand (or rather its "voluntary muscles"), can do nothing but what it is told; it can never be a master, nor even a servant, only a slave. While my volitional ego is always both, a servant in relation to either my self or my super-ego and a master in relation to my body.
The "demands" of reason are not imperatives because, although it is possible not to listen to them and to forget them, as long as we listen and remember, it is impossible to disobey them, and a true imperative always implies the possibility of either obeying or disobeying. In so far as we listen to reason, we are its slaves, not its servants.
iv
I care for nobody, no, not I And nobody cares for me.
—The Miller of Dee
But my five wits nor my five senses can Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee, Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to he.
—shakespeare, Sonnet CXLI
Because of its double role the volitional ego has two wishes which, since the Fall, instead of being dialectically related, have become contradictory opposites. On the one hand it wishes to be free of all demands made upon it by the self or the conscience or the outer world. As Kierkegaard wrote:
If I had a humble spirit in my service, who, when I asked for a glass of water, brought me the world's cosdiest wines blended in a chalice, I should dismiss him, in order to teach him that pleasure consists not in what I enjoy, but in having my own way.
When Biron, the hero of Love's Labour's Lost, who has hitherto been free of passion, finds himself falling in love, he is annoyed.
This senior junior, giant dwarf, Dan Cupid, Sole emperator and great general Of trotting paritors (Oh nay litde heart) And I to be a corporal of his field And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop.
On the other hand, the same ego wishes to be important, to find its existence meaningful, to have a telos, and this telos it can only find in something or someone outside itself. To have a telos is to have something to obey, to be the servant of. Thus all lovers instinctively use the master-servant metaphor.
Miranda : To be your fellow
You may deny me; but I'll be your servant, Whether you will or no. Ferdinand: My Mistress, dearest,
And I thus humble ever. miranda : My husband then?
Ferdinand: Aye, with a heart as willing As bondage e'er of freedom.
And so, with calculation, speaks every seducer.
BERTRAM: I prithee do not strive against my vows.
I was compelled to her, but I love thee By love's own sweet constraint, and will for ever
Do thee all rights of service.
diana: Ay, so you serve us
Till we serve you.
To be loved, to be the telos of another, can contribute to the ego's sense of importance, provided that it feels that such giving of love is a free act on the part of the other, that the other is not a slave of his or her passion. In practice, unfortunately, if there is an erotic element present as distinct from fhilia, most people find it hard to believe that another's love for them is free and not a compulsion, unless they happen to reciprocate it.
Had man not fallen, the wish of his ego for freedom would be simply a wish not to find its telos in a false or inferior good, and its wish for a telos simply a longing for the true good, and both wishes would be granted. In his fallen state, he oscillates between a wish for absolute autonomy, to be as God, and a wish for an idol who will take over the whole responsibility for his existence, to be an irresponsible slave. The consequence of indulging the first is a sense of loneliness and lack of meaning; the consequence of indulging the second, a masochistic insistence on being made to suffer. John falls in love with Anne who returns his love, is always faithful and anxious to please. Proud and self-satisfied, he thinks of my Anne, pres- endy of my -wife and finally of my well-being. Anne as a real other has ceased to exist for him. He does not suffer in any way that he can put his finger on, nevertheless he begins to feel bored and lonely.
George falls in love with Alice who does not return his love, is unfaithful and treats him badly. To George she remains
Alice, cruel but real. He suffers but be is not lonely or bored, for his suffering is the proof that another exists to cause it.
The futility of trying to combine both wishes into one, of trying, that is, to have a telos, but to find it within oneself not without, is expressed in the myth of Narcissus. Narcissus falls in love with his reflection; he wishes to become its servant, but instead his reflection insists upon being his slave.
v
Das verfluchte Hier —goethe, Faust
Goethe's Faust is full of great poetry and wise sayings but it is not dramatically exciting; like a variety show, it gives us a succession of scenes interesting in themselves but without a real continuity; one could remove a scene or add a new one without causing any radical change in the play. Further, once the Marguerite episode is over, it is surprising how litde Faust himself actually does. Mephisto creates a new situation and Faust tells us what he feels about it. I can well imagine that every actor would like to play Mephisto, who is always entertaining, but the actor who plays Faust has to put up with being ignored whenever Mephisto is on stage. Moreover, from a histrionic point of view, is there ever any reason why Faust should move instead of standing still and just delivering his lines? Is not any movement the actor may think up arbitrary?