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NOTE Sacrifice and Molestation

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Molestation and Its Relationship to Sacrifice

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The question of sacrifice and self-sacrifice is a very interesting one.

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As I view the nature of man, it seems to me that many times human beings have been engaged in actions which demand the sacrifice of other people.

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We are constantly engaged in erecting a value system of our own, which we then seek to impose on others of our kind.

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And in so doing, we violate their particular value mechanism and we, in essence, sacrifice their values to ours.

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Or, another way of putting it would be to say that we sacrifice their wills to our will.

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That would be a sacrifice.

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But I'm often asked about this question of self-sacrifice and I'd like to deal with that right now.

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I will contend that there is no such thing. Not really.

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A person who says that he is practicing self-sacrifice is actually engaged in massaging his own ego.

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Very definitely. He is seeking, probably, to let you know how important he is and what a great person he is, that he is willing to do certain things that are very difficult and that are obviously costing him a great deal, and he is simply wallowing in self-approval.

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He's not engaged in a self-sacrificial action.

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He is simply engaged in an ego elevating procedure.

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And this is what happens, I think, in that area.

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Let me give you an example of what I mean and how this relates to the general manner

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in which human beings conduct themselves.

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Let me take an illustration.

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Here we have a man walking over a bridge that spans a stream.

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This man can't swim.

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He looks over the rail, and there's a child thrashing about in the water, and the child

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screams, help, I'm drowning.

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As I've said, the man on the bridge can't swim.

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And he sees the child about to drown.

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Now what does he do?

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Well I don't know what he will do, but let me suppose that even though he cannot swim,

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he now throws off his coat, kicks off his shoes, and goes over the rail in an effort

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to save the child.

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Is that an act of self-sacrifice? No. The man is actually engaged in fulfilling his highest

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value at that time as he sees it. Granted, he can't swim. But what he is doing is this.

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In essence, all of these things have flashed through his mind. He is saying, I've got to

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try to prevent loss. In this case, the loss of the child. Why? Because he feels that he

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would have a guilty conscience if he didn't at least make an effort to try to save the child.

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Or he also would say, there's a gain to be had here, if by some fluke I can manage to save that

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child, what a marvelous plus factor. Actually he sees both of these as plus factors. Now as far as

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winning approval of others is concerned, what a marvelous way to win the applause of multitudes.

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Here is a man who admittedly can't swim, who jumps in risking his own life and saves the child, maybe.

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Whoa, he could expect a good round of applause.

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And what about the idea of pleasing himself, of self-approval?

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No man would ever try more diligently to win self-approval than the man who couldn't swim,

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who would try to do it to save someone's life.

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This man is simply wallowing in self-esteem.

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And if you talk to him, he will tell you that he is willing to sacrifice everything he has

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for someone else.

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He is not sacrificing a thing.

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He is fulfilling his highest value and taking fantastic pleasure and profit in so doing.

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Now let me take that same illustration and reverse it.

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Here we have a man walking across the bridge and he also cannot swim.

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And here we have the child in the same perilous condition, screaming, help, I'm drowning.

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And this man looks over the rail and says, sorry, kid, I can't swim.

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And he walks off and goes on his own way.

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Now what is he doing?

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Well the curious thing is, he's doing the same thing in relation to the drives.

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In other words, he is saying to himself, I've got to prevent a loss and the most important

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person not to lose is me.

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So I'm just not going to run the risk.

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And he goes on his way to prevent that kind of loss.

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How about the gain aspect?

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Well, he says, it's certainly a gain if I don't risk my life for the kid.

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Besides, if I jumped over, I'd probably help to drown him.

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Maybe the kid can make it without my help.

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I don't know that.

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But I do know that I can't swim.

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So this man is engaged in rationalizing his action in precisely the opposite way as the

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Now, this second man isn't going to anticipate that there's going to be a big crowd of people

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applauding his action, because we tend not to applaud that type of action.

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But what this second man is saying to himself is this.

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I think that those people who understand, that is, the real intellectuals, the people

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that I value, the people that I associate with, when I tell them what I did here, they

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will pat me on the back and say, man, that took courage.

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You waited correctly and you behaved correctly in spite of popular pressure, which would

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have told you that you should lay yourself down as a possible sacrifice for the child.

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So he will take pleasure here in knowing or believing that other people will applaud his

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action even though it will be a different group of people who applaud.

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And in the final analysis he will say, well, this means self-approval.

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So here we have a case of two men faced with exactly identical situations, behaving in

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opposite ways but motivated by the same fundamental drives.

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This is why I think we can correctly say that the drives that we have that lead us and cause

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us to act as we do are fundamentally inherent, and they are not really the result of individual

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procedures.

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And all of this ties to this question of molestation and sacrifice and self-sacrifice.

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Thus, I would like to establish that, as I see the nature of man, self-sacrifice is impossible.

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It just doesn't happen.

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But sacrifice can happen, and it happens at those points where an individual inflicts his

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will on another.

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Thus, for instance, the man who decides to walk off and leave the child drowning has

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has not hurt the child. He did not inflict his will on the child. He just didn't help

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the child. He is not guilty of any action against the child. He is just not a cooperator

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in helping to save the child. Now, if the man had jumped in and in process had helped

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to drown the child, then he would have inflicted something on the child and the child would

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would have been his victim and would have been molested by him, even though the man

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was trying to help him.

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Of course, if there was another man who had thrown the child in in the first place, that

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man would have been a prime child molester and we obviously wouldn't waste much sympathy

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on him.

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But the fact would be that an act of molestation would be an act of imposed sacrifice on someone

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Thus if, and this will be a very difficult point I think for some to grasp, if we are

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talking in terms of a person wanting to kill himself and we prevent him from killing himself,

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the act of preventing a person from taking his own life would be an act of molestation.

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Whereas if a person does not want to kill himself but is killed by another, then that

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is an act of molestation.

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In other words, molestation, as I am trying to set it up here in this framework of reference

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to sacrifice, would be an action wherein the will of a person is violated by the imposition

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of another party's will, irrespective of the action taken. An action that might be beneficial,

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but that is imposed, is molestation. In other words, if I came to you and I said, here is

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a hundred dollars and I insist that you accept it, and you didn't want it, but I did insist,

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Say at the point of a gun that you take that $100, that's molestation, even though you

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might very well benefit by having the $100.

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And of course if I came at you with a gun and took away five cents, that too is an act

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of molestation.

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It isn't the action itself, it is the imposition of the will of someone else over your will

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that causes you to be molested, victimized, and hence a human sacrifice.

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Now, the thing that we're primarily concerned with here is trying to devise a system for

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human living that will avoid human sacrifice.

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And in order to try to avoid human sacrifice, we have to recognize the supreme importance

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of the human will.

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We must recognize that the human will is the man's most basic property, it's his most

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basic individualistic item, and he must be left free to exercise it in his own way, providing

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only that he molest no one else in so doing.

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In other words, the wisdom of the man in exercising his own will may not be thrown into the equation

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here to weigh what is right or wrong.

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Instead, the question that must be faced constantly is the question of who is deciding what a

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particular will will do.

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Is it the man himself or is it somebody else imposing on him?

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Whether the imposition is good or bad is meaningless in this context.

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What is important is who is running you, you or me, and that's what we mean here.

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Often we are asked, what do you believe?

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Do you think man is basically good or basically evil?

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And I would have to reply that man is neither basically good nor evil.

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Man is basically egocentric.

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He is self-oriented and self-interested and he is basically seeking the good for himself.

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Even when he thinks he's not, that's really what he's doing.

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He is engaged in seeking good for himself.

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He is not seeking evil.

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Now, if men, of course, were basically good, well then, of course, there would be no requirement

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at any time for some control to be put on top of them because they would be so basically

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good that no external control could even be dreamed of and we could forget it.

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Of course, on the other hand, if men are basically evil, then we couldn't afford to have a control

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put on top of them because that would be a control containing power and force in the

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hands of men who are basically evil.

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And if men are basically evil, then you couldn't afford to have such men with power.

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If men are basically evil, the less power they have, the better.

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So we have a problem here if we are talking about a species that is either basically good

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or basically evil.

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Actually, that's not the case.

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Man is basically a seeker of the good.

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He is a prophet seeker.

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That is to say, he seeks what I have called plus factors in all his actions and he seeks

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to maximize his own well-being by whatever it is that he does.

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So that is really the nature of man as I see him in this connection.

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Now in order to understand this more fully, I'm going to a little later on get into the

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property area and discuss it at length.

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But I want to right now stay a little further with this molestation area because I want

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I want to introduce this to the level of morality and what I mean here about creating a social

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order or a system that does not require some imposed force upon anyone.

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This is what I think we want to aim toward because of the obvious fact that if the analysis

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The exercise used here is a proper one and has any validity.

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It follows that no man is going to approve of his own molestation.

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Every human being will want to fulfill his own will in the matter, and providing he limits

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the exercise of his will to himself and to those things that are his, then there is no

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No way that by doing that he could impose on anyone else.

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And therefore it would be a very good system, if we could devise it, wherein individuals

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would manage their own affairs and their own lives, providing they didn't have someone

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else being imposed on them from above, taking away their opportunity to do what they want

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to with themselves and with what is theirs.

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So that's what we want to think about.

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We want to think about a way of doing this that would be successful and meaningful that

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would tend to minimize or even hopefully eliminate acts of imposed sacrifice.

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You see, self-sacrifice I have ruled out by definition.

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So sacrifice exists and what we want to do is to create a social system wherein human

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Human Sacrifice Disappears, where nobody is going to sacrifice anybody else ever for

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any reason.

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Now that of course would be, this is certainly utopian, it sounds like pie in the sky, but

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I'm not so sure that it's impractical for the reason that every time we have a case

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In the face of molestation, we have what we want to call aggression, that is, the person

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who is molested feels himself to be victimized, he feels himself to be the victim of an act

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of aggression.

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Now, I know of no scholar who differs on this.

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Everyone agrees here that the natural result of an act of aggression is frustration.

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Every person who experiences aggression is frustrated.

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The reason he's frustrated is because someone else is deciding what he will do and his own

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will has been thwarted.

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So he's frustrated.

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Now what does he do as a result of his frustration?

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The evidence is overwhelming.

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He commits aggression.

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You have a kind of interplay here, an interrelationship, an endless circle.

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The person who is aggressed against is frustrated and because of his frustration, he will aggress

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somewhere else.

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Now, interestingly, we don't necessarily aggress against the person or the organization

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or whatever it was that we think aggressed us.

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He'll aggress on something else that's handy. A man will go to work and the boss will growl

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at him, and he can't growl back to the boss. So he'll be angry, he'll have a good head

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of steam, he'll get in his car, and he'll drive around a corner too fast and splash

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mud on somebody. Well, that's to commit an act of aggression. He didn't really mean to

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to Hurt the Party but he just wasn't taking the proper precautions and so he commits an

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act there that relieves him of his frustration.

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Well what happens to the party getting splashed?

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Well he's frustrated and so then he goes and balls out his wife.

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Well his wife didn't do anything to him but somebody else did so he passes it on to her.

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If she's not there he kicks his dog, he does something, he takes it out because he's got

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to relieve his frustrations, or he's going to become repressed and possibly he can become

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a mental case unless he does get rid of his frustrations, all right?

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Then would it be so impractical to try to construct a system which would begin reducing

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the element of aggression and the consequent element of frustration?

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It seems to me that this would be a very practical thing.

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Because the more we can eliminate the one, the more we would tend to eliminate its reaction.

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And the consequence would be then, with the passing of time, the level of aggression and

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frustration would both begin to diminish and this would tend to maximize human well-being.

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That's what we want.

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So once we recognize that the source of all frustration is just one thing, it is the violation

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of Your Will, where you want to do something that's perfectly proper with yourself or

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with something that belongs to you, and for some reason you are prevented by another will

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that takes precedence over your own.

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Now that's where frustration arises.

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That's an act of aggression, or if you like, it's an act of sacrifice.

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You have been sacrificed, or your values have been sacrificed, to somebody else's values.

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And when this happens, you resent it. You may not do anything about it at the time,

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but you have a frustration. One frustration adds to another. These things build up and

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pretty soon you blow your top. Now this happens socially, between individuals. It happens

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between groups. It happens between nations. This is the fundamental source of war and

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disorder in our whole human arrangement. So obviously if we can get to the cause of

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Now, when I talk in terms of a moral arrangement, I want to make one thing clear here.

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In speaking of morals, most people use the term morals and ethics interchangeably, and

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I propose to make a separation.

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I'm going to refer to morals as that area of thought dealing with objective reality.

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In other words, I'm going to contend that moral law, if it exists at all, would have

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to exist at the level of principle.

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It would be a derivative of nature, that is a derivative of things as they are, and it

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It would not be the product of the human value system, whereas I will use the word ethics

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to relate to the product of the human value system.

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Ethics is the study of values.

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When we are studying ethics, we are studying to try to find out what is good and what is

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not good and what is better and what is worse.

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We're concerned constantly in terms of evaluation procedures.

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That's the purpose of ethics, to try to arrive at what is good.

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But the concept of morality, although it may contain an ethical characteristic, I want

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to remove here from any theological overtones.

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The concept of morality, as I wish to use the term here, would relate to those things

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that ought to exist because of the nature of man in his relationships with other men.

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Now I'm not speaking here of those things that men ought to do simply to preserve their

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own lives.

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As I view that, this is not a moral or an ethical question.

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If we have a man alone on an island, obviously it is true that if he cannot get enough to

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eat, he will die. If he cannot find shelter of some sort, he probably will die. If he

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catches cold or gets some other type of germ or contagion of some sort, he will die. There

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are many things that could kill him. If he finds himself falling off a cliff, he will

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will die. There are lots of things that can do him in. In order to survive, he will have

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to do those things that he ought to do in order to stay alive. That is, he will have

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to obey natural law in order to continue to function, if he intends to continue to function.

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Fine. Now when we are talking in terms of inter-human relationships, well, we are not

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We're not dealing with a man alone on an island, but we're dealing with human beings in interplay,

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action and reaction between them.

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It is here that we get into the question of morals and ethics.

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It is not now merely a question of how do I survive.

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The question is, how do I survive in a moral context in which you also survive?

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Because the concept of morality would have to be predicated not merely on what I have

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to do to stay alive, but what I must do so that I do not prevent you from staying alive

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if it is your wish to stay alive.

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I may not presume to keep you alive if you want to die, but I may not presume to let

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you die if you want to stay alive, or to compel you to die if you want to stay alive.

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So then my relationship to you, if it is to be a moral one, must be a relationship of

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non-molestation and non-sacrifice.

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So this would be the moral theater.

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It would be the area that exists between human beings in an interpersonal relationship.

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And what I would like to suggest is that the ideal to be attained here would be the same

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ideal for both of them that would exist on a desert island.

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In other words, I should do nothing to you that would prevent you from also following

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the rules of nature and getting enough to eat and getting a place to sleep and shelter

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and so on, so that you could look after yourself.

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If I intervene to prevent you from doing this, then of course I am molesting you.

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On the contrary, if I do not intervene, I have no obligation to keep you going.

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I simply must not, if I am to be moral, I must not prevent you from exercising your

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will over yourself and what is yours.

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If you want to stay alive, that's your business.

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If you want to die, that's your business.

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that I may not intervene if I am to be moral.

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So here we have a moral concept, and I'd like to sum it up this way because I think it is

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predictable, excuse me, I don't mean predictable here.

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I think it is observable, let me say, that moral law is predicated upon a universal situation

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that we can observe. It is observable when it comes to the question of molestation, sacrifice

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and so on, that no human being ever approves of this when it's happening to himself. Every

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human being by his nature rejects his own sacrifice at the hands of another. Every human

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being will reject his own molestation at the hands of another. In other words, we have

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a predictable reaction here.

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And that puts it in the area of principle.

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A principle is a predictable outcome from a specific set of factors.

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And here we have specific factors that tell us that it doesn't make any difference who

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the person is, how old he is, or what his race or nationality or religion or condition

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in life may be.

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He will not approve of anybody else imposing their will over him, and thus sacrificing

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him or molesting him.

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So we have a common denominator here from which to reason in an effort to establish

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a moral relationship.

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So the moral relationship that I'm talking about would be limited to inter-human relationships,

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And the ideal would be a human relationship, an inter-human relationship, in which we try

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to maintain for each one of the persons present the condition that they would have if they

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were alone.

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In other words, it is my job to see to it that I do not impinge my will on yours, ever,

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for any reason, good, bad or indifferent.

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Now that would be the ideal to arrive at, and that would be the moral law.

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The moral law would be the law of non-molestation.

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If we are to live in a world where no molestation occurs of any sort, it will have to be that

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kind of a world.

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The kind of a world in which we recognize the absolute right of the other party to mind

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make his own affairs, control his own life, make his own decisions, and act on them in

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respect to those things that he owns without any interference from me or anyone else for

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any reason, good, bad, or indifferent.

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If we can work toward that, and I think we can, then I think we will be doing a very

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worthwhile thing.

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And that's what we want to try to do in this course that we're offering.

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Thanks very much.

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