Autogenesis 08

A perverse secret is the practice of the unspoken. When condescension destroys the social bond

Condescension is not a simple social blunder. It is the expression of contempt. Contempt destroys the mutual recognition upon which every social bond rests. One cannot despise someone while recognising that person as an equal; the two are mutually exclusive.

When a society normalises contempt, it loses more than politeness; it loses the moral bearings that allow one person to recognise another as a fellow human being.

What is true between two individuals is also true of institutions. The citizen exists because the city recognises that person as a political subject. The user needs no recognition; the user consumes a service that operates independently of all reciprocity.

The passage from citizen to user marks a rupture.

Reciprocity ceases to be the condition of the social bond and gives way to a manipulative bond.

The unspoken then becomes the system’s true cement. Everyone senses that a bond has broken, but the absence of words with which to name it allows the mechanism to endure.

Mathius TO’ERAU, the Suréviste