Worthiness and Worthlessness

"Tactics in conversation- After a conversation with a person one is best pleased with him when one had had an opportunity of exhibiting one's intelligence and amiability in all its glory. Shrewd people who wish to impress a person favourably make use of this circumstance, they provide him with the best opportunities for making a good joke, and so on in conversation. An amusing conversation might be imagined between two very shrewd persons, each wishing to impress the other favourably, and therefore each throwing to the other the finest chances in conversation, which neither of them accepted, so that the conversation might turn out spiritless and unattractive  because each assigned to the other the opportunity of being witty and charming."

Frederich Nietzsche, Human all too Human

"To injure and to be injured- It is far pleasanter to injure and afterwards beg for forgiveness than to be injured and grant forgiveness. He who does the former gives evidence of power and afterwards of kindness of character. The person injured, however, if he does not wish to be considered inhuman, must forgive, his enjoyment of the other's humiliation is insignificant on account of this constraint."

Frederich Nietzsche, Human all too Human

The above are two excerpts from Nietzsche's thoughts on man in society. It talks about human relations and human emotions. The above hits home on people whom have negative view on human to human relations but claimed to live positive and force giving life.

The above assumes that all emotions are merely constructed and cannot transpire without human instrumental agency. This means that all our actions are directed only for their interest and emotions are merely a protection of self-interest and self-worth.

I used to have this idea that humans- both man and woman are capable of altruistic or at least spontaneous emotions. I have began to question this idea recently. I have began to suspect and realise that some sections of society subscribe to this idea of all actions merely reflections of rational and self-interested thinking.

The idea that self-worth is based on an actual debasement of the "other" was an idea I have thought on an intellectual level but never experienced viscerally. It had occurred to me that some people really have that idea and it was an idea that they had hidden covertly behind many cloaks.

What type of cloaks that one might ask? They have hidden behind the cloaks talked about above. Behind the idea of human courtesies, decencies and last bastion of human discrimination behind the conscious mind. Discriminatory words are never exchanged and they are taboo and against human decency. Discrimination is based merely the conscious actions differentiating one from the other class or segment or category. It is politically incorrect to even mention the idea of any form of prejudice and yet it cannot be proven. This is because no correspondence was written, no words were exchanged and yet the invisible prejudice exist within society.

Differentiation were based on your self-worth and how well you reflect these class and stratum differences. Even if you belong to a lower grade, you must reflect your "class actions" otherwise, you would lose your self worth within your class and even within the wider society.

Based on the above excerpts, it is based on the ability to how well you reflect your "worthiness" and ironically "worthlessness" to the gaze.

Take for example, a blue collar worker inability to demonstrate his low status such as an "penchant" for junk food, "obesity" and uncontrollable urge for not "controlling" his human tics is a reflection of his status as a person who is workhorse and one who does the "grunt" work. The lack of ability to demonstrate this traits runs the risk of losing the status as such hence his livelihood even.

Therefore related to the above excerpt, the lack of ability to demonstrate his debasement to his more "superior" white collar workers show his hostility towards them. Their self-worth is based on their ability to inflict injury to their more sedentary and "nerdy" white collar colleagues by showing their machoism. Hence if one has a faithful deference to "management" white collar workers, it is a mere demonstration of weakness rather than a strength in spirit and human character. This is accepted from both sides, even from the white-collar workers.

This instrumental view on human action and behaviour is very telling once you see from the eyes of their self-interest and self-directed interested behaviour. In fact, class and strata differences are differentiated on their ability to reflect their self-worth or even worthlessness.

Their idea of identity is tied to power and influence they have over each other. The inability to coerce the other party's acknowledgement is a demonstration of weakness and is therefore essential to their identity.

It is therefore paradoxical that on both sides of the parties, they are essentially locking themselves into the identity closets and throwing away their key.

Clever and even brilliant to the way that the system is maintained but it is really at the altar of what makes a human that such differences and differentiation can be maintained.