Maladaptive Machiavellianism fueling Delusional Psychopathy (1/3) – Fear (1996)
by Philip Jonkers
i. Machiavellianism — Adaptive versus Maladaptive flavor
Engaging in deception and manipulation usually is worthy of condemnation since such Machiavellian type of practices seek to draw the people who are exposed to them away from the objective unadulterated truth and are therefore lured away from perfect sanity of mind. Hence, due to its character being immoral in an absolute sense, Machiavellianism is usually maladaptive in that it tends to drive a civilized society exposed to it away from its ideal harmonious Golden Rule-compliant state; and the practice should therefore in general not be encouraged. However, this does not mean that Machiavellianism is unconditionally immoral; or immoral under any arbitrarily given set of circumstances. There does exist a sphere of applicability, however narrow in scope, at which the use of deception and manipulation is warranted, indeed, desirable.
When I think of proper excuses to engage in deception and manipulation, i.e. case examples which justify the use of Machiavellian conduct, I like to bring up the commendable work of Irena Sendler. Sendler was a Polish social worker and nurse who served in the Polish Underground Resistance during World War II in German-occupied Warsaw. “From 1935 to October 1943, she worked for the Department of Social Welfare and Public Health of the City of Warsaw. During the war she pursued conspiratorial activities, such as rescuing Jews, primarily as part of the network of workers and volunteers from that department, mostly women. Sendler participated, with dozens of others, in smuggling Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and then providing them with false identity documents and shelter with willing Polish families or in orphanages and other care facilities, including Catholic nun convents, saving those children from the Holocaust.“ (Wikipedia)
It should be obvious, given the perilous circumstances she had to deal with, that Sendler and her colleagues would never have been able to rescue the large number of Jews which they did, including numerous children, if they had been completely frank and fair in their interactions with the German occupier. Sendler quite simply was forced to deceive all those German officials who got in her way of getting those Jews out of occupied Poland and into safety. In other words, her Machiavellianism–although its application, in a strict absolute sense, did stand to adversely affect the mental sanity of all those (unwitting Germans) exposed to it–might be excused, indeed, even lauded because the positive payoff was much greater than the moral cost of its application; the valuable salvaging work which she and her colleagues did, although technically morally shady in an absolute sense, prevented greater humanitarian tragedies from occurring in terms of loss of life and was therefore effectively sustainable and relatively righteous.
In terms of Karma, you might say that the work she did, possessed tremendous positive Karmic potential of an imaginary kind, with the term “imaginary” (in general) referring to the prevention of disaster. You might say that the likes of Sendler were agents of imaginary positive Karma, in that–by saving the many lives which they did–they were successfully able to prevent the veritable disaster of the destruction of that large number of innocent lives, lives which–it may be imagined–otherwise stood to be sacrificed on the megalomaniacal and bloodthirsty yet symbolic altars catering to the idolatry practices of the hostile German occupier (and such terrible contingency, now thankfully avoided, would only compound the enormous amount of negative Karma already incurred by the German war-machine in particular, and the German people giving rise to that war-machine in general).
The moral of the story is that, although Machiavellian conduct is immoral to the extent that engaging in deception or manipulation is immoral by absolute default, there does exist a certain sphere of application–though modest in range–in which Machiavellian conduct turns out to be moral in a relativistic sense, a sense in which the moral cost unavoidably incurred gets to be overshadowed by the moral benefit or fortune that such otherwise default shady type of conduct also brings along. All those German soldiers and officials who came to be exposed to deception and manipulation coming from the likes of Sendler may have suffered in mental ways to some extent due to being forced to scratch their heads a bit longer than was healthy while trying to make sense of the mystifying world around them in which a significant number of Jews apparently managed to slip away from their grip of power undetected, such mental cost to the German occupier nevertheless came to be compensated, indeed, overcompensated by the simple fact that however many lives were saved from all-but certain destruction. In a Karmic sense, the German occupier would have cause to restrospectively be grateful for the likes of Sendler in that the German people (in particular its armed forces) were saved from having to redeem in what then was their future the even greater karmic cost that belongs to the hypothetical scenario in which the lives now saved by Sendler and company had instead ended up extinguished at their hands (in agonizing pain and suffering).
As such, Machiavellian conduct thus can be adaptive and its practice might be justifiable, even heroic, but only under certain exceptional circumstances, the sort of conditions which are rare and hard to find in ordinary civil society, but which are more easily found when people have to cope with the kind of powerful adversarial forces that make fair play (next to) impossible. The occupation of Poland by the German military during WWII, for example, constitutes one such environment in which the application of Machiavellian coping strategies is both virtuous and relativistically moral. The movie Colonia (2014), also based on true history, features another example of a kind of societal context–or environment of social interaction–in which being honest and fair (Golden Rule-compliant) is likewise out of the question; and the application of Machiavellian conduct is essential indeed, for bringing the pertinent mission to a successful conclusion.
The present analysis about the movie Fear (1996), however, is about a societal context in which Machiavellian conduct is recognizably maladaptive; a required environment of social interaction featuring (overwhelming) danger and adversity is just not present for the application of Machiavellian coping strategies to have any justifiable merit and righteousness.
0. Maladaptive Machiavellianism fueling Delusional Psychopathy – Fear (1996)
I’m greatly indebted to all the people involved in making the movie Fear (1996) and making it available in whatever shape or form to the public. My special thanks goes out to director James Foley and script-writer Christopher Crowe; actors Mark Wahlberg, Reese Witherspoon, William Petersen, Alyssa Milano and Amy Brenneman.
According to a 2017 article posted in the Chicago Tribune, Mark Wahlberg–one of the lead actors in Fear–prayed to God for forgiveness concerning his role in the 1997 movie called “Boogie Nights”. The article goes on to quote Wahlberg as having said, “I just always hope that God is a movie fan and also forgiving, because I’ve made some poor choices in my past” and “‘Boogie Nights’ is up there at the top of the list.”
I don’t personally know Mark, have never spoken with him and although I do hope someday I will, I’ve never met Mark. As is evident from my movie-list at Facebook, what I can say is that I do like a lot of movies he’s in. He sure seems like a solid actor to me — such was already apparent to me when I first watched Basketball Diaries. And it is precisely the kind of roles in which he plays flawed (and vulnerable) sort of characters that make the movie stand out to me. His role in Boogie Nights to me was a milestone. Quite frankly, I loved the movie the first time I saw it and still do now — it’s one my favorites. I even like it better than the one analyzed here, Fear — although I obviously like that one too.
It unfortunately seems as if Mark is ashamed of his role in Boogie Nights. Perhaps he now feels as if porn stars and God just don’t mix. I beg to differ. First off, he played a role of a porn star. He didn’t actually perform as a porn star. The movie offered a glimpse into the life of people working in the American porn industry of the late 70s and early 80s. Like most of the movies ever made, Boogie Nights serves as a document of the human experience.
And since it offered an interpretation of a particular kind of human experience, whether the experience is good or bad, decent or indecent, base or noble, the movie did contribute to a wider understanding of the human being. There’s almost a mathematical certainty behind the statement, that the better we are able to understand the human being, the better we are able to love the human being. After all, provided we don’t confuse worship for love, how can we possibly really love someone, if we don’t understand the person (at all)? As any member of clergy may attest, the Golden Rule teaches the paramount virtue of loving our neighbor as we do ourselves. Porn stars are human beings too and if we know nothing of porn stars and the kind of lives they are living, then how on earth would we be able to love them as our own?
Some of us may not approve of porn and I’m not by any means trying to whitewash what porn actors do. Personally, I certainly don’t agree with the abuse going on in the industry that you regularly hear about. But that does not make porn stars any less human. And so if movies about porn life can help us to gain a better understanding of porn life, then they can automatically help us to gain a better understanding of the human being behind the porn star. And those movies don’t even have to be entirely factually accurate, if they manage to make us think about in this case the life of porn stars, if they do help to broaden our understanding of people in general, then the production of the movie has already been justified — at least, that’s how it would seem to me.
As for Mark’s hope that God would be a fan of movies, although it is always tricky to speak on God’s behalf and care always needs to be taken not to put words in God’s mouth, if you would ask me, I think God not just is a fan of movies, I even like to think that God is a major albeit unseen driving force behind the production of a lot of movies. God may not be loud and all out in the open about it, but I do think that God serves as a great invisible engine of inspiration behind scores of movies — including especially the type of movies that depict flawed characters, characters that are in pain, or are either in conflict or conflicted themselves, characters that have to deal with challenges and ordeals, trials and tribulations.
Indeed, I even like to think of God as being a movie director of sorts. I have already written about this in my previous analysis of the wonderful and likewise important Joker movie. In its introduction, I interpret God as the Ultimate Movie Director and expand on the notion that human life as we know it, may be viewed through a movie-making type of lens, even though it’s an admittedly unconventional one. Such a view of things generates into being what might be called the Metaphysical Movie Metaphor capturing all of human life as it is happening right now (and at any given moment), one in which each of us plays the role that God has chosen for us to live right now (whether we are witting actors in God’s own Movie of all Movies, or not).
By the way, I had a bit of a TV crush on Alyssa Milano during the mid-eighties when she played Samantha Micelli in “Who’s the Boss”. I probably still like her if and when I would meet her in real life, even though I recently disagreed with her on Twitter. What happened was that she went on a rant about Trump. Say what you will about Trump, if the criticism is fair and deserved, I might just have no problems with it. But Alyssa went on berating him on the basis of either judging his orange-colored hair or his perhaps orange-like complexion, both personal attributes which the man can’t help to have been born with, and at any rate both are superficial personal attributes that can’t possibly be called relevant as to his function of office as president.
Since a racist judges a person on the basis of that person’s skin-color, whether she judgmentally addressed his hair color or skin color, she at once proved to have acted with the mindset of a racist — sadly. It reminds of what Joe Biden said recently, “If you have a problem figuring out if you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.” In other words, Biden judged a black-skinned person such that they are expected to vote for him and thereby proved to also have the mindset of a racist. Of course, it also didn’t help when he said at another time, “Poor kids are just as bright, just as talented, as white kids,” implying that poor kids come with a colored skin; and by judging kids on the basis of their skin color: white-skinned kids be rich and color-skinned kids be poor, he once again proved to have the mindset of a racist.
Anyway, enough politics and racism for now, back to the program. It was the second time I had a crush like that though; the first time I had a TV crush was with the lead singer, Baby Love, of The Rock Steady Crew when they had their smash hit Hey You the Rock Steady Crew back in 1983. Baby Love was also the first person who inspired me to adapt my tread to a more relaxed quintessential American way of walking. When people now see me walk, chances are they already mistake me for an American. Heavily inspired by American movies and TV shows of the eighties, I used to talk English with an American accent too, even to the point at which some time during the mid-nineties a befriended American exchange student confessed to me that he kept forgetting I was Dutch. I suppose it goes to show that my love for America and American culture goes back a long way indeed (having roots that may even go back to my previous life when I again seem to have lived in the US, albeit briefly).
Now on to the actual analysis. First off, its more technical sections are probably hard to digest without a grasp of Idolatry Theory, concocted also by me, and which can be found here.
In order to make the notation of the scripts snappier in the analysis now before you, the (two-in-one) phrase, “is responsible for initiating/executing“, will be replaced by simply, “initiates/executes“, respectively.
In addition, the notation of the role-object box and the tool box will be shorthanded in a way that is indicated by the following example:
David executes a self-actualized practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} David-idolatry: Superior by Lying to Audience/ about FDavid&MDavid&Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
…will be understood to stand for:
David is responsible for executing a self-actualized practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} David-idolatry: Superior by Lying to [Audience/people] about [FDavid&MDavid&Audience/people] – Using [Verbality&Name&Body/whatever];
In order to indicate the beginning and ending point of a script, starting and ending terminals will be used signifying chapter and script iterator/number — like so, (1.1| (INTRO) SCRIPT BODY STAGE 1-3 (ELABORATION) STAGE 4 |1.1).
1. Meeting David
Sixteen year old Nicole lives in a remote and secluded house immersed in the woods on the outer edge of Seattle with her father, his new wife Laura and her tween son from a previous marriage, Toby. One day, Nicole was supposed to join her family to attend a James Taylor concert, but since the father ended up being called away for work at the last minute, the concert plans were cancelled, leaving Nicole free to do what she rather wanted to do in the first place: joining her friend Margo to attend a rave at a club located at the docks of Seattle called Occidental.
Later that evening, Nicole and Margo can be seen walking around at the rave. And it is there that she meets David for the first time, whom she happened to have spotted from a distance earlier that day when she, Margo and their friend Gary picked up food at a joint where David and his friends were shooting pool. With Margo out of sight, busy trying to hit on Logan over in the middle of the dance-floor, David and Nicole exchange a few words when suddenly a fight erupts, involving also Logan, and the whole rave at the drop of a hat descends into a panicking frenzy. A vigilant and perspicacious David immediately knows what to do, quickly escorts Nicole out of harm’s way by taking the stairs leading up to the roof, where she–following David’s lead–manages to leave the building unscathed via one of its fire-escapes.
With Margo running off with Logan for the night, David drives Nicole to some remote picnic place where they can talk privately under a still and starry night.
Nicole: “I stayed with my real mom in L.A. After my dad moved up here. I was nine years old. It was just the two of us, all alone in this big house. She was so sad most of the time and I kinda felt like I was the one taking care of her.“
David: “Must’ve been tough.“
Nicole: (looks at him intently; long pause) “Yeah.“
David: “How ’bout your dad? You get along with him okay?“
Nicole: “I don’t know. I only moved up here about a year ago. It’s not like we even know each-other that well.“
David: “Yeah.“
Nicole: “How ’bout you? You have parents?“
Nicole: “I mean, that you see and stuff.“
David: “Yeah. Well, they’re back East, but I talk to them all the time.“ (1.1.i)
Nicole: “Are they still together?“
David faintly smiles and slightly nods affirmatively, as if casually saying yes. (1.1.ii)
David: “They’re weird, though. I mean, they’re totally cool, totally together. It’s just that they’ve never had a disagreement about anything more serious… than whether it’s gonna be mashed or Stove-Top, tea or coffee. Kinda crazy.“ (1.1.iii)
Nicole looks at him.
David: “What?“
Nicole: “Nothing.“
David: “That was not ‘nothing’ going on behind those beautiful eyes of yours. Tell me.“
Nicole: “I was just thinking that you’re not at all what I expected you to be the first time I saw you.“
David: “How so?“
Nicole: “I don’t know. You’re just… You’re sweet. What? You’re the one that’s hiding something.“
David: “It’s just that I was taught that if something seems too good to be true, then it probably isn’t.“
Nicole: “Yeah.“
David: “So far what I know about you is you’re beautiful… and incredibly perceptive. I just need to know like one flaw so I can believe the rest.“
Nicole: “Got a week?“
David: “I got all the time in the world.“
Apparently triggered by the word time, Nicole looks at her watch. . . with concern.
Nicole: “Oh. David. I gotta go. My curfew’s at midnight.“
Without saying anything, David brings his hands to her arm carrying the watch, uses one to hold her hand and uses the other to grab the crown of the watch between his index finger and thumb and winds it such that the minute-hand rotates counter-clockwise 180 degrees, setting the displayed time back half an hour. (1.2.i)
David: (smooth) “All the time in the world.” (1.2.ii)
David kisses Nicole on the cheek, and then on the mouth, but after a few seconds Nicole raises her hand and pushes David back so as to discontinue their kiss.
Nicole: (shy) “David. I’m sorry. I guess you found my flaw.“
David: (smooth as silk) “That’s not a flaw. That’s one more perfect thing for me to admire. And respect. And wait for.“
(1.1| Let’s assume, and this will be verified later on in the story, that David is lying about his familial background — that he, in fact, has no parents anymore. And so the orphan that he is, all what he is saying that involves his parents deserves to be counted as disingenuous: to wit, David presents himself as someone who would still have parents, when he doesn’t; parents he talks to all the time, when he couldn’t; parents who would be “weird“, “totally cool, totally together“, when that’s impossible also; parents who never have any disagreement about anything of substance, when that likewise deserves to be counted as baloney.
In effect, David goes to float a deception built around his own person, presenting himself in front of Nicole (and also himself) as an idealized and fictitious kind of guy, made extra attractive for having a perfect relationship with perfectly charming parents, who would only be enjoying one of the most stable and idyllic of marriages.
As such, David’s act of deception–heavily soaked in artificial peace and harmony as to his familial background–may be described by the following script:
i. Psychic Abuse of the Deceptive kind: Level = Moral Error; Perp = David; Audience = Victims = Nicole&David;
1. Incoming-stage: David initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} FDavid|MDavid-idolatry:[X] Still alive, living back East, talks with son all the time, still having a “totally cool“ marriage, never disagreeing about anything serious with spouse;
{+} David-idolatry:[M] Sweet and normal (if not perfect & ideal) type of guy, having ‘good catch’ written all over me for having an entirely respectable relationship with my entirely respectable parents back East;
{+} Nicole-idolatry:[M] Lucky thing for running into David, such a sweet and normal (if not perfect & ideal) type of guy, having ‘good catch’ written all over him. . .;
Abstract Pidols are primarily cast over Audience, followed by secondarily casting over Steve&Laura&. . .;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: David executes a self-actualized practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} David-idolatry: Superior by Lying to Audience/ about FDavid&MDavid&Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} David|Nicole-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied to by David/ Lying about FDavid&MDavid&Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} David|Nicole-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied about by David/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} David-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by David/ to Lie to Audience/ about FDavid&MDavid&Audience/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the other, and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: David initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} David-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Lie to Audience/ about FDavid&MDavid&David&Nicole/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} David|Nicole-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied to by David/ Lying about FDavid&MDavid&David&Nicole/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} David|Nicole-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied about by David/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} David-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by David/ Lying to Audience/ about FDavid&MDavid&David&Nicole/;
Abstract Pidols are cast over David and all those aware of David’s act of deception;
In summary, on a qualitative level, David incurs authentic guilt toward all the people whom he involves in his act of deception. To wit, he incurs authentic guilt toward all the people he lies about: his late father, mother(+) and himself; and he incurs authentic guilt toward all the people he lies to: Nicole and himself, and indirectly (secondarily) also, Steve and Laura. In a moral sense, in terms of his authentic conscience, David himself is the biggest victim since–of all the guilt that he brings into being–he incurs most of it toward his own person (note that most Pidols are defined based on his person/have him for object).
(+) Even though his parents are dead (a fact of life which will be verified shortly), they are still worthy of being thought to be victimized in a metaphysical sense (by David, or anyone else lying about them), a sense that transcends the apparent everyday reality in which we are only confronted with still living people, busy living the lives that they are currently living (obviously); it’s a sense consistent with the concept of reincarnation, giving rise to a more complete transcendental worldview which emerges when taking into account (at least) all of the consecutive human lives that each person of all the people living now, has ever lived. The concept of reincarnation is fully consistent with the idea that God is also a just kind of god, i.e. a type of god holding everyone to full account of all of the consequences of the moral infractions they commit.
By lying to Nicole, between the two of them, David effectively makes an illegitimate power grab as he usurps the moral high-ground while relegating Nicole to a morally inferior position; David victimizes everyone involved through his deception and therefore has an obligation to own up to the responsibility of now rectifying his efforts to draw everyone exposed to his deception away from the truth.
David would have been (somewhat and relatively) justified in leveling his deception if it would have enabled him to prevent greater immorality, a greater disastrous situation, from occurring; if hypothetically–for example–Nicole was virtually held hostage by an evil, possessive and abusive sort of father (or both guardians); the poor girl therefore needed to be freed (by any means necessary) and, as such, a little lying on David’s part would have been worth the moral price, being justifiably instrumental and adaptive instead of dubiously and ominously maladaptive which it now is since obviously such dramatic and medieval type of calamitous context is not applicable when the family-members under Steve’s parental leadership enjoy fairly normal, tranquil and civil sort of lives — ones that are fortunately nowadays, after many turbulent centuries of striving for progressive civilization, typical for families hailing from stable Western countries.
By floating his deception, by lying to himself and Nicole about himself and his parents, by disseminating all those toxic Pidols over himself and Nicole, David incurs authentic guilt toward Nicole, toward the parents he seeks to posthumously exploit through his manipulative mischaracterization; but–most of all, since most Pidols are based on him–he incurs authentic guilt toward his own person. By burdening his authentic conscience correspondingly, David victimizes himself most of all from his attempts to draw his own person and Nicole away from perfect truth and therefore away from perfect sanity.
Courtesy of initiating his deception victimizing himself above all others, if he now saddled himself with a considerable load of inner psychic tension due to a correspondingly-taxed authentic personal conscience, then why on earth did he do it?
Well, one obvious possible reason as to why David lied, is that he could have feared rejection if being honest about who he was, if sharing his true background, if letting Nicole–the girl he now has set his sights on–in on what kind of parents he really had had and what kind of youth he really did have. If this is an accurate reason, then it is plausible to assume that deep down inside he feels ashamed of his past, that (based on personal experience) he fears being shamed if revealing the naked and vulnerable truth as to his person; and so by invoking his power of deception, he basically prefers to play God (if counterfeit version) by creating and promoting an alternative yet fabricated reality surrounding his own person in order to avoid having to deal with what he infers to anticipate is that creeping fear of rejection, going hand-in-hand with a ghoulish fear of shame.
In addition, he uses his counterfeit divine power of deception as an instrument of procurement, serving to get him what he wants. By artificially increasing what he implies to think is his personal attractiveness, he shows to hope that Nicole would find him more attractive than his nakedly honest, uncensored and unadulterated self; even though the obvious downside of his invocation of deception is that, if proving successful, the new girl of his fancy would be drawn to his counterfeit alter-ego, instead of his authentic self, the person he really is without pretense, censure and cunning.
In other words, a self-abnegating David works to make Nicole fall for his false self.
4.1. If we adopt the general premises that David has a penchant for seeking to avoid shame directed at his person and has a penchant for seeking to expand personal power using arbitrary means, we may make the plausible assumptions that David thematically idolizes shame-avoidance and power-seeking: thus practicing Shame-avoiding Self-idolatry and Power-seeking Self-idolatry. The inauthentic conscience underlying a commitment to these two inner Golden Rule-perturbing systematically-internalized practices–this double idolatrous devotion–may be defined by the following axioms of conscience:
- An action (initiated by himself or whomever) may be considered good if it either enables David to avoid personal shame, or if it enables him to maintain or expand personal power; specifically, in case personal shame can’t be avoided, said action may still be deserve to be deemed good if it serves his broader goal of pursuing power;
- An action is to be regarded bad (evil) if it brings down shame on him and if it simultaneously proves useless in his power aspirations; or, alternatively, said action may still be bad if it doesn’t necessarily bring shame to his person but would diminish his power instead.
Whereas his actions to beguile Nicole with a false narrative as to his upbringing is costly in terms of his authentic conscience and therefore–with respect to the Golden Rule–deserves to be deemed irrational; in terms of his inauthentic conscience, his deception makes more sense, even though the personal attractiveness he raises into being vis-a-vis Nicole is not genuine. The authentic conscientious tension he now has brought down upon his own person does not go away as long as he does not confess to her (and technically also himself) that he was lying to her, and so–either unwilling to claim his own authentic guilt or altogether blinding himself from it–he will now naturally be motivated to project the alleged source of his disquieting inner tension on designated scapegoats (and or enemies); and he will likewise see himself forced to mitigate its symptoms by (overshadowing) surrogate momentarily mood-mending means (e.g., through substance abuse, reckless sexual activity or heedless predatory behavior).
4.2 In terms of actualization, as for Nicole, she seems to be quite taken in with David, and due to (naively) believing him, may be expected to gullibly-actualize his practices — and so now her mental idea of David is based on the kind of fantasy in which he was the product of an attractively-harmonious familial upbringing (God knows what sort of real background he has). It of course remains to be seen, what her reaction would be if she found out that David was putting on a little misleading show just for her. Would she be willing to identify with him to such extent that she would agree to rationalize away the then-verified reality of his deception? (and, as such, willingly rationalize-actualize his stage 2 and 3 practices?)
As for David and actualization, even though his authentic conscience is already crying bloody murder, with respect to this inauthentic conscience on the other hand, David has reason to convince himself that he only did good by trying to bedazzle Nicole the way he did, serving to avoid shame as well as promoting his power over the girl he now seeks to court. With respect to the rationalization-stage, if he is (still) aware that he is being deceitful, he might rationalize away his deception by telling himself that it was vitally needed, a necessary evil if you will, since telling the (ghastly) truth was deemed out of the question, as it would have deterred the girl (or so he would think). Hence, consistent with his inauthentic power-seeking conscience, he were to only feel entitled to lie about himself (as well as mom and dad) to the girl he seeks to charm.
However, by exposing himself to his own deception, by exposing also himself to the unduly attractive image impressions he flaunts of his own person, his parents and implicitly also of Nicole (that lucky thing), David exposes himself to the natural risk of believing his own lies, i.e. ending up gullibly-actualizing his own practices (listed above).
In general, the–what might be called–occupational hazard of engaging in deception, is being confronted yourself with the temptation to buy into your deception in an effort to maintain some level of respect for the people you try to deceive (including, by necessity, if paradoxically enough, your own person), people whom you otherwise–if remaining fully aware of your deliberate efforts to bamboozle the lot–risk seeing as dumb dodos for buying into your bewildering bullshit. And so by fooling your own mind through believing your own lie or deception, you basically expose yourself to the risk of cognitive decline and mentally demote yourself to become one of those dumb dodos yourself, all in order to not have to view those other feathery victims of your shenanigans in the disparaging light of the dumb dodos you otherwise would be tempted to regard them.
In David’s particular case, if his aim is to maintain respect for the girl he seeks to charm, then the prospect of having to admit to himself that she nevertheless is dumb enough to believe his baffling balderdash, constitutes the regrettable sort of development of personal awareness that tends to conflict with his egosyntonic possible image of her placed on an arbitrarily-high pedestal of personal adoration. After all, if being perfectly honest with himself, he might be expected to object admitting to himself having for a girlfriend who is evidently naive and gullible. However, if he could convince himself that he would not be lying to her at those type of occasions when he factually does, he then could afford to glance over her manifested personal gullibility, while at the same time being able to maintain an elevated level of respect for her, artificial though it be — since, by effectively becoming as gullible as she is, his admiration for her is then also steeped in self-deception.
In other words, he is trying to make her fall for his false self while at the same time his affection for her also is steeped in self-deceiving falsity.
The cost to himself of embracing a strategy of wilful gullibility is profound, as it requires an inherently risky detachment from grounding in perfect truth and reality, which corresponds with an abandonment of grounding in perfect sanity. By succumbing to the temptation to believe his own lies (ever more), by basically becoming as gullible as the people he lies to, especially including the new girl of his dreams, he might be able to continue looking up to her but–the more he lies to her and believes his own lies–he will regrettably lead himself further and further down the path of falsity and therefore become progressively insane (marked by a necessarily progressively-failing mental memory).
4.3. In terms of sacrifice, all for the goal of charming the girl he has set his sights on, David sacrifices the truth as to his own person (and his parents) on the altar catering to the thematic idolatry practices of his own person, devoted to propping up his cunning shame-avoiding and power-seeking false self. As a result, he makes it more difficult for the people he victimizes through his deception to relate to him in truth, and by drawing them away from his true self, thus makes it less easy for them to relate to him with the love and compassion he might have been able to tap into if being sincere and truthful as to his person. |1.1)
(1.2| Even though Nicole casually prejudged David as sweet, here he is just the same initiating an (other) act of deception not just right in front of her own eyes but also while using her property. By setting back Nicole’s watch, it may be said that David uses the property of Nicole to launch the sort of deception in which 1) he grants himself an excuse to make out with Nicole, and 2) they come out looking more innocent than they actually were: ignorant though innocuous, thinking that the real time was half-an-hour earlier than it really was; thus furnishing Nicole with an excuse to return home half-an-hour past curfew and blame her watch instead of owning up to the nevertheless rational responsibility for being late in actuality (and perhaps suffer the punishment that follows from honestly admitting culpability).
David’s additional act of deception may be described by the following script:
i. Psychic Abuse of the Deceptive kind: Level = Moral Error; Perp = David; Audience = Victims = Nicole&David;
1. Incoming-stage: David initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Nicole|David-idolatry:[X] Having all the time in the world, at least half an hour;
Abstract Pidols are cast over Audience;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: David executes a self-actualized practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} David-idolatry: Superior by Lying to Audience/ about Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body, Nicole’s Physicality (Watch)/;
{–} Nicole|David-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied to by David/ Lying about Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body, Nicole’s Physicality/;
{–} Nicole|David-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied about by David/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body, Nicole’s Physicality/;
{–} David-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by David/ to Lie to Audience/ about Audience/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Physicality by David/ to Lie to Audience/ about Audience/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the other, and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: David initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} David-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Lie to Audience/ about Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body, Nicole’s Physicality/;
{–} Nicole|David-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied to by David/ Lying about Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body, Nicole’s Physicality/;
{–} Nicole|David-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied about by David/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body, Nicole’s Physicality/;
{–} David-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by David/ Lying to Audience/ about David&Nicole/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Physicality by David/ Lying to Audience/ about David&Nicole/;
Since Nicole is aware of David’s deception, the Abstract Pidols are cast over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, David incurs authentic guilt toward all the people whom he involves in his act of deception — which are the people he lies to and lies about: Nicole and especially himself.
David thus invokes his power of deception to this time compete with the parental authority of Nicole’s guardians in order to prolong his stay with the girl beyond the time-limit of what the guardians have decided is acceptable; and to furthermore provide themselves with a shot at getting away with it, without being punished for it. As such, David already puts himself in a state of antagonism with the guardians of Nicole, even though–at this stage–it still is a relatively innocent state of rivalry.
It is nevertheless remarkable that David already right away would risk setting himself up in a state of conflict with the guardians of the girl he seeks to court. By challenging the parental authority of her guardians right off the bat, it’s almost as if he beforehand had resigned himself to the self-sabotaging prejudice that they were prejudicially stacked against him, that they would not favor him right from the start; that he would fear being rejected by them from the get-go, and that his decision to resort of deception at the possible cost of alienating also the guardians, in turn, bespeaks of his preemptive rejection of them. In other words, it seems that he afforded himself the liberty to effectively disrespect them because he beforehand had given up the hope to be respected by them; that a state of antagonism between himself and the guardians would be unavoidable and that he therefore had prejudged (whether consciously or subconsciously) his antagonism toward them as being sound and just (reactive instead of provocative).
What he sadly does not seem to understand is that, by exposing them to his deceit right from the start, even if Nicole’s guardians would not be prejudicially stacked against him, if he simply persists in his penchant for deceit also victimizing them, sooner or later they will turn into his de facto enemies through the simple mechanism of self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e. the sort of prophecy which he actively (if not to say, diligently) works to fulfill himself.
4.1. But the above train of critical thought refers to David in terms of his authentic conscience. Interpreted in the context of his inauthentic conscience, when it comes to avoiding shame and promoting his grip of power over the girl he now wants, David must be partial to entirely different picture. Whereas he did not do good at all by floating his deception when listening to his authentic conscience, in contrast, his inauthentic more Machiavellianly-oriented sort of conscience would only be bound to tell him that he did do rather well.
But it is unlikely that David himself thinks in such explicit terms of exercising raw power, unlikely to think of himself as someone who idolizes power just for the heck of it. What David would be needing was a more noble motive for his penchant to be Machiavellian, a reason which were to dictate that his behavior was not that of someone going down the path of power just for power’s sake (that would paint him rather clearly as unsympathetic and evil, like some sort of Dr. Evil wannabe). In order to plausibly deny being a servant of ignobility, he must be able to furnish his penchant for flexing power with a more noble sheen, and be able as such to set himself up in his mind as a “good guy” merely caught in a (perpetual) struggle with one or more “bad guys” of the hour, dangerous sort of characters who somehow always manage to crop up in his life at crucial times.
Again, as already alluded to before in the previous script, David’s presently antagonistic behavior would not be maladaptive if he really had to deal with the sort of guardians who did exert an immoral and unwholesome type of influence over Nicole, that they would be so evil (with respect to Nicole) that his own evil–including his own penchant to utilize deception–in trying to court Nicole (with the ultimate aim of “liberating” her) would be negligible in comparison, and its invocation therefore being relatively justifiable (in light of the [noble] end justifying the means, including–what to any objective standard are–morally reprehensible means).
4.2. In terms of actualization, if he knows he is engaging in deception, I expect David to readily actualize his own stage 2 and 3 practices, seeing himself either entitled to deceive because it serves the goals of his inauthentic conscience; or, when not even recognizing that he was articulating an act of eception, simply skipping this whole rationalization bit in its entirety (thus saving himself from the conscientious burden to review the moral contents including justifiability of his conduct) and move straight to gullibly-actualize his practices.
Nicole likewise seems to give in to the temptation to rationalize away David’s deception, by being able to share in the benefit of getting to have an excuse to come back home late and have a chance at avoiding punishment. As to how she would go about rationalizing the deception remains to be seen, but she could tell herself that it was a prize worth paying for having had the fortune of meeting David, such a sweet and charming young man. She might, alternatively or additionally, try to downplay the significance of the deception: turning back the time of her watch half-an-hour or even an hour, what’s the big deal?
4.3. In terms of sacrifice, for the sake of promoting artificially-sanctified image impressions of himself and Nicole, David goes to sacrifice more truth as to his own person as well as that of Nicole on the imaginary altar catering to the thematic idolatry of his own person, in particular the altar hosting idolatry of a shame-avoiding flavor (Shame-avoiding Self-idolatry). As a result, for seeking to draw them both away from the perfect truth, David incurs authentic guilt toward himself and Nicole. In addition, since he uses her property to float his deception, David incurs further authentic guilt toward Nicole. However, Nicole also incurs guilt herself for her deliberate decision to share in the benefit of disposing over a seemingly plausible excuse to come home late; she therefore joins David by willfully putting also herself in a position of conscientious opposition with her guardians and consequently risks receiving (justified) reproach from their end. |1.2)
The more authentic guilt David accrues through floating the deceptions which he does, i.e. the more he chooses to play a counterfeit version of God trying to create his own counterfeit reality built around his own person, the more he would have reason to fear reproach from all those folks whom he seeks to steer away from the objective and perfect truth. And by generating all of that conscientious tension, he will understandingly feel a need to cathartically ventilate his anxiety; the sort of anxiety which may be mitigated best by confession of personal wrongdoing.
However, if he (consistent with a militant mindset) does not perceive such to be an option, it may also be ameliorated, albeit temporarily, through committing predatory actions (again, consistent with a militant mindset), the sort of actions which establish personal power and, as such, by way of shaming other people, provide himself with an assurance (false though it may be) that he need not own up to shame himself, since his own guilt-laden state of moral inferiority gets to be eclipsed by the state of (heroic) moral superiority which he would want people to derive from his expressed act of shaming power. In simpler terms, he wants the people exposed to his show of power to view him as someone who commands moral superiority (yet again, consistent with his militant mindset), the opposite of a state of moral inferiority, a state of shame (a state of defeat, which be inconsistent with a militant mindset).
David may thus be tempted to deny his own guilt (especially toward the girl he seeks to romance) by projecting it instead on preferred factual scapegoats, the sort of people whom he (again still, consistent with a militant mindset) feels earn such demeaning designation for somehow getting in his way like the enemies (or nuisances) they show to be and therefore automatically deserve what’s coming to them — which translates into a David cavalierly going ahead and treating those people as if they are the genuine cause as to why he might feel that there is an air of punishment hanging around him, a perhaps ever more tense and uncomfortable punitive atmosphere creeping up on him (as if, yet once again consistent with a militant mindset, an enemy is about to strike him. . . or shame him).
1.1 Perpetuating David’s deception when coming home
When Nicole finally does come home (alone) well over her curfew, Laura is there waiting for her, being none-too-pleased.
Laura: “The least you could have done was call, Nicole. I was sitting here for two hours imagining God knows what.“
Nicole: “Laura, I can’t help it if my watch broke. I mean, how would I even notice unless I was staring at it every second.“ (1.3)
Laura: “Go to bed, Nicole. We’ll deal with this tomorrow.“
Nicole: “Laura…“
Laura: “I’m angry, Nicole. Just go to bed. And take off your makeup. You look like a slut.“
(1.3| Obviously Nicole is lying about her watch; her excuse being entirely disingenuous. Following David’s lead, she’s trying to float a follow-up deception built around her own person, trying to make herself look more innocent than she was in reality: losing track of time due to a purely material cause totally unrelated to their selfish personal desires of a romantic nature (the watch must be having one of those manufacturing defects; or maybe it was accidentally dropped and ended up giving the wrong time).
Her deception may be captured by the following script:
i. Psychic Abuse of Deceptive kind: Level = Moral Error; Perp = Nicole; Audience = Victims = Nicole&Laura;
1. Incoming-stage: Nicole initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Nicole-idolatry:[X] My watch is broken & could do nothing about it & was at a handicap to even notice it & that’s why I’m late;
{+} Nicole|David-idolatry:[M] Being temporally ignorant but otherwise entirely innocent as to coming home past curfew;
Abstract Pidols are primarily disseminated over Audience and secondarily over Steve (after catching wind of it from Laura);
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Nicole executes a self-actualized practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Nicole-idolatry: Superior by Lying to Audience/ about Nicole&David/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole|Laura-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied to by Nicole/ Lying about Nicole&David/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied about by Nicole/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Nicole/ to Lie to Audience/ about Nicole&David/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the other, and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Nicole initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Nicole-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Lie to Audience/ about Nicole&David/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole|Laura-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied to by Nicole/ Lying about Nicole/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole|David-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied about by Nicole/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Nicole/ Lying to Audience/ about Nicole&David/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Nicole and others aware of Nicole’s act of deception;
In summary, qualitatively, Nicole incurs authentic guilt toward all the people whom she involves in her act of deception — which are the people she lies to and about: Laura, David and especially herself. Since David deserves obvious blame for having (tacitly) seduced Nicole beforehand to carry out her own follow-up act of deception serving to fortify his prior own subterfuge, for inspiring her to commit this act of deception, David gets to share in the guilt which Nicole now is incurring.
4. In terms of conscience, although Nicole incurs authentic guilt toward all the people that she involves in her act of deception, and as such is responsible for generating authentic conscientious-based tension with respect to those same people for whom she as-of-now would naturally anticipate retaliatory reproach, when it comes to her inauthentic conscience connected to a possible thematic practice of Shame-avoiding Self-idolatry, she did not do so badly, but–indeed–did do rather good. It’s just too bad that her efforts to circumvent shame have yet to prove successful.
In terms of actualization, in all reasonability, Nicole–knowing full well she is lying about her watch–won’t gullibly-actualize her own practices, but instead will have to rationalize-actualize her practices consistent with her attempt to dodge the punishment which is now looming over her head — i.e., she would then tend to justify her deception as it served the goal of avoiding punishment. It is uncertain whether Laura can be fooled into taking the bait and thereby prove willing to gullibly-actualize Nicole’s practices. It is even more doubtful whether a naturally skeptical Steve will buy into Nicole’s butt-saving fantasy.
In terms of sacrifice, in an attempt to avoid the shame of getting caught for deliberately breaking her curfew and suffer punishment for it, Nicole chose to expose Laura (as well as a herself) to a distortion of truth; and so attempted to draw her (as well as herself, and later on also Steve) away from perfect truth and immaculate sanity. In other words, Nicole made it a little bit harder for herself to keep relating to Laura in a Golden Rule-compliant way because now she has to factor in a component of fear, i.e. fear for receiving Laura’s reproach for exposing the guardian to deception. By being the sole additional benefactor of Nicole’s deception, David stands to make himself instantly suspect in the eyes of Nicole’s guardians, i.e. to the extent that they wise up to their daughter’s mischievous shenanigan and her shady new associate. Even though the level of displayed deception is still relatively innocent, David ought to be careful to not put his prospects for enjoying Golden Rule-compliant interactions with Laura and Steve on the line. |1.3)
The next morning, Steve confronts his daughter with her curfew violation and it ends with him punishing her with extra kitchen duty and yard work. Nicole again shows to protect David when she neglects to say anything about the artifice he first launched aiming (evidently, as it turned out, in vain) to break her curfew and getting away with it too. Inspired ultimately by guilt-induced fear for reproach coming from Steve for trying to draw him – his daughter and his wife away from perfect truth and perfect sanity of mind, David–while, by resorting to repression, probably remaining unconscious as to the real origin of such type of mental stress induced by himself–might now be encouraged to only further militarize his attitude to the one person who already shows to tilt toward being able to see (right) through him.
When a nevertheless still unsuspecting Steve asks his daughter if David is good guy, Nicole says that he’s good to his car, which apparently falls well with Steve even though she–at least for the time being–fails to say anything further about David as a person.
Later that evening when the two guardians are alone in their bedroom, Laura shows to be less pleased with what she finds is her husband’s too lenient handling of his daughter. Laura implies to believe that Steve is too soft on Nicole because of feelings of guilt he would have toward her for having abandoned her when she was little. Manifesting an eagerness to punish, Laura feels that Nicole should have been grounded; that his parental leniency is going to backfire in the future; and that furthermore Nicole would respect him more if he maintained discipline through a more rigorous adherence to the pertinent set of house-rules.
2. David meets Nicole’s family
Nicole and David go on to become so close that, before long, David asks her if he could meet her family. Nicole consents and she takes him to the Walker house, also accompanied by Margo — charming Margo. After meeting Steve and briefly exchanging a few words, David right away showcases his seemingly benign and helpful character by offering to lend Laura a hand with her greenery business, assuring her that he gained experience while working summers in a nursery, the sort of experience she seems sure to profit from and gladly goes to acknowledge his help.
After getting his hands dirty helping her out, Laura points David to the washing space next to Steve’s study even though she insinuates finding dirt under a man’s fingernails attractive if it’s hard-earned, which causes David to remark that maybe he shouldn’t wash up then — thus constituting a tongue-and-cheek sort of flirtatious admission which Steve did happen to pick up through the walls and may already have ticked him off a little. A second later, David nevertheless does knock on Steve’s door, the latter whom is trying to finish work before his deadline comes up later today.
David: “Oh, excuse me, Mr. Walker. I was looking for the bathroom.“
Steve: (neutral) “Uh, it’s right in there.“
David: “I’m not disturbing you, am I?“
Steve: “No, no. Go ahead.“
David: “Thank you.“
While David walks in to wash his hands, Margo also comes around not far in his wake.
Margo: (to Steve) “Did David come in here?“
David: “I’ll be right out!“
Steve: (charmed) “Margo. Come on in. Tell me about life.“
Margo: (walks in; already seductive tone) “Mr. Walker, I’m sure you know a lot more about life than I do.“
Steve: “I wouldn’t be so sure. I get surprised at least once a day.“
David: “That’s the fun part, though; isn’t it, Mr. Walker?“
Steve: “Depends, David. Kinda cuts both ways. You just never know.“
David smiles and nods, even though maybe he might just feel as if the older was perhaps also including the younger in the older’s remark marked by wariness.
Nicole: “Two minutes.“
Laura: (off-screen; to Nicole) “Don’t forget those trash bags have to go out. You’re not gettin’ out of that.“
Nicole: “All right!“
Margo: (to Steve) “You should come with us to The Orbit. It’d be fun.“
David: (out-of-the-blue) “Nicole!“
Nicole: (off-screen) “Yeah?“
David: “Get me a Coke!” (2.1)
Steve suddenly looks intently at David, having the sort of expression on his face that radiates disapproval, if subtle.
Nicole: (off-screen) “Okay, I’ll be right there.“
Charming little Margo seemingly starts a little playfully-teasing show of seduction.
Margo: “Come on, Steve. You could play pinball. You could ride the bumper cars. You could do that thing where you throw the ball at something…“ (unzips boot; leans over to suggestively reveal what rear-hind goodies she has on offer) “And maybe win me a stuffed animal. Or you could just walk around, eating cotton candy, checking everybody out.“
When Steve shows signs of becoming somewhat uncomfortable from Margo’s sexually-titillating little performance, David is sure to pick up on it, smiling broadly and unabashedly at Steve as if to say that he only knows full-well what sort of arousing effect a provocative Margo is now having on Steve. It only leaves Steve showing to feel even less at ease, indeed, vulnerable, as if suddenly caught with his pants down. It appears that David might now have reason to secretly congratulate himself for finding a weakness in–a chink in the armor of–the one person who might stand up to him, the one person whom might get in his way as to his power aspirations involving the daughter he seeks to conquer; and the father therefore might be the one person whom David might feel is in need of overpowering and submission.
David: (Nicole enters and brings him his coke) “Thank you. You almost ready?“
Nicole: (affirmative) “Mm-hmm.“
David: (soft tone) “I wanna get there before dark. We still gotta pick Logan up. So try to hurry, okay?“
Nicole: “Okay. Let me grab my jacket.“
David: “Okay.“
Right before David is to walk out, Steve–not surprisingly in a slightly more frosty mood–is sure to remind him of his daughter’s curfew and the implicit importance to not break it.
Steve: “David. Nicole’s curfew is 12 o’clock, not five after, all right?“
David: “All right.“
The phone rings, Steve answers, it’s his colleague. But with his back now turned to David, he is unable to see that the latter stealthily turns the minute-hand of a clock standing on a table next to Steve’s desk, back half an hour (the evidence is mounting that this might be the kind of gimmick he perhaps has made into a bit of a habit). (2.2.i)
Steve: “Hello. Yeah, Eddie.“
David: (walks out; insincere) “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Walker. Take care.” (2.3)
(2.1| Seemingly because it (understandably) goes against the wishes of the father, it is rather dubious for David to go and give an order to the daughter (still a minor) of the father who also happens to be in the same immediate space as David is, the kind of physical vicinity which moreover happens to be under natural authority of the father. When it comes to exercising authority over his daughter, Steve might just object having to deal with someone who so liberally goes around acting as his equal, someone effectively competing for authority over the one person whom he–by natural law–is supposed to protect and warrant the well-being of.
David’s immoral order may be represented by the following script:
i. Psychic Abuse of the 2-party Immoral Order kind: Level = dubious Moral Action; Perp = David; Victim = Nicole; Audience = David&Steve&Margo&Nicole;
The order at hand is a minor offense and so that’s why I chose to give it the lowest possible degree (dubious Moral Action); and yet it’s altogether not entirely morally clean either. David bosses around Nicole right in front of her guardians, including her biological father, and not just that but also in his very own home;
1. Incoming-stage: David executes a self-actualized practice of Abstract…
{+} David-idolatry:[X] To have Nicole bring me a coke;
{–} Nicole-idolatry:[X] To bring David a coke;
Abstract Pidols are cast over Audience;
David is clear and explicit in his wording of the order, hence the “[X]” preambles;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: David executes a self-actualized practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} David-idolatry: Superior by Giving an Immoral Order to Nicole/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} David-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by David/ giving an Immoral Order to Nicole/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Inferior by Being given an Immoral Order from David/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
David exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to Steve&Margo, and audially to self; Nicole exposes PrimePidol audially to self;
David arrogates a morally superior position by immorally ordering Nicole as if she, at least for the moment, would be his inferior, his serf. David, however, does declare some inferiority as to his own person by using his own words, his own body and his own name to pass the order of dubiously moral stature, a type of order which thus has a reasonable tendency to promote personal notoriety instead of celebrity [unless it’s of a notoriety type].
3. Rationalization-stage: David initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} David-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to give an Immoral Order to Nicole/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} David-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by David/ giving an Immoral Order to Nicole/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be given an Immoral Order from David/ in front of Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, David incurs authentic guilt toward all the people whom he involves in his immoral order, in whatever role. To wit, he incurs authentic guilt toward Nicole for using her as his order object and to (especially) himself for using his own person to utter the immoral order (order giver). He further incurs authentic guilt toward all the other people who act as witnesses, Margo and of course Steve.
4. In terms of conscience, even though David incurs authentic guilt toward the members of Audience, especially Nicole, Steve and toward himself even more, and is thereby responsible for inflicting authentic conscience-tension between himself and everyone involved (but especially with himself!). With respect to his inauthentic conscience connected to a thematic practice of Power-seeking Self-idolatry, however, his dubious action seems to make more sense because it serves to establish personal power, one that overtly yet casually challenges the parental power of Steve. He shows to not be daunted from defying Steve’s authority and seeking to exercise competitive and supplanting control over Nicole; and when she delivers his coke to him without muttering or complaining, it shows the father to not be the only one having power over his daughter, not even in the very home that also falls under his natural power-dominion.
In terms of actualization, as for the particularity specificity, David might see himself perfectly entitled to boss Nicole around, even in front of her father and in the house of the father. While under the sway of not his authentic but inauthentic power-seeking type of conscience, he is prone to see what he has Nicole do as not immoral at all. David may thus be expected to actualize his own practices. In sharp contrast, I don’t expect Steve to follow David, and the father may already have to restrain himself to not reproach the younger other for his manifested show of unwarranted power over Nicole. The daughter, still completely taken in with David as ever, likewise seems to attach not even a hint of offensive meaning to what David made her do; as does Margo; they both do not seem to recognize the immoral nature, albeit still rather slight and relatively innocuous, of David’s little burst of initiative. As for the generality specificity, by successfully executing his immoral order, David may have reason to pat himself on the back and the occasion may inspire him to only see himself righteous and entitled to up the ante of his power-seeking aspirations in a more wider and general context (promoting a more general attitude in which he would see himself ever more licensed to order people around to do his bidding).
In terms of sacrifice, David’s power-seeking action stands to not exactly earn him favors with Steve. Indeed, his little show of power already serves to draw himself away from an amicable Steve, thus making up one more piece of evidence that he from the apparent outset was locked in a state of antagonism with respect to the guardians of Nicole, in particular Steve. And so the sacrifice which David now is poised to make may be described as a measure of quality in his potential relationship with Steve, causing him to willfully drift away from the prospects of having a normal Golden Rule-compliant relationship with Steve (going from potential friend to potential enemy a little bit more, and if the younger keeps on pushing the older in that direction, there might just come a time in which David would be forced to receive the older as an actually manifesting enemy). |2.1)
(2.2.i| By messing with Steve’s clock, David shows to pull a similar kind of stunt as he did with Nicole, only now his intention is markedly even less excusable, if only for the fact that Steve is left none-the-wiser of it. David uses the property of Steve to again float a subterfuge serving to give Steve an incorrect perception of time, trying to deceive the father into believing to have half-an-hour more time than he had in actuality. Since Steve is trying to finish a deadline for work, David’s deception may have significant consequences for a Steve mesmerized by a disadvantageously misleading and false sense of time.
David’s little ploy may be described by the script:
i. Psychic Abuse of the Deceptive kind: Level = Moral Error; Perp = David; Audience = Victim = Steve;
1. Incoming-stage: David initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Steve-idolatry:[M] Having an extra half-an-hour to finish work before deadline expires;
Abstract Steve-Pidol is cast only over Steve;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: David executes a self-actualized practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{–} Steve-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied to by David/ Lying about Steve/ – Using Steve’s Physicality (Clock)/;
{–} Steve-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied about by David/ Lying to Steve/ – Using Steve’s Physicality/;
{–} Steve-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Physicality/ by David/ to Lie to Steve/ about Steve/;
Steve exposes PrimePidol only audially to self;
Note that it’s not an error that there is no practice listed concerning David since he is absent during the actual Scene of Immorality, i.e. he is absent when the deception is carried out, which is every time Steve consults the clock and gains for himself a wrong perception of time. The scene may be imagined as if David was whispering into Steve’s ear an incorrect time whenever the latter would hypothetically ask him for the time, except that David is now not using his body (or words or name) but Steve’s own physicality (clock) in order to execute his deception.
3. Rationalization-stage: David initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} David-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Lie to Steve/ about Steve/ – Using Steve’s Physicality/;
{–} Steve-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied to by David/ Lying about Steve/ – Using Steve’s Physicality/;
{–} Steve-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied about by David/ Lying to Steve/ – Using Steve’s Physicality/;
{–} Steve-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Physicality/ by David/ Lying to Steve/ about Steve/;
Abstract Pidols are instantly disseminated over David while manipulating the clock, and over Steve when realizing being the victim of a faulty (and possibly tampered) clock;
In summary, qualitatively, David incurs authentic guilt toward all the people whom he involves in his act of deception — which is himself as well as especially the person he lies to, lies about and the person he uses the property of in executing his deception: Steve.
4.1. In terms of actualization, David probably readily sees himself entitled to pull off the sneaky stunt which he did, perhaps not even seeing it as an immoral action at all — merely an act of justified punishment directed at someone who deserved what was coming to him, someone who began to more-and-more manifest as an enemy to him (gee, I wonder why that might be). The (moral) sleepwalker David could be, he on-the-other-hand might not even be conscious of engaging in deception; or, if he is, may justify his subterfuge while under the spell of his inauthentic power-seeking conscience. Steve, on the other hand, if realizing he had been the victim of malice, may be expected to only be unwilling to rationalize away David’s practices (stage 2 and 3); not seeing himself deserving to be the victim of the other’s foul play, if he would even be aware being victim as well as being a victim of David.
In terms of sacrifice, if Steve ends up falling for the other’s deception, David is thus manipulating Steve to sacrifice truth as to his own person, causing him to be less grounded in truth when it comes to perception of time. If Steve now lands himself in trouble for being unable to finish up his assignment before his real deadline expires, David is also responsible for causing the father to have to weather the storm that logically follows. By initiating the little flimflamming shenanigan which he did, a power-idolizing David indeed shows to already be upping the ante of his militarized attitude toward the father. |2.2.i)
Steve raises a hand in the air as if nonchalantly affirming a David saying goodbye, while at the same time being busy telling Eddie that he’ll drop off the results of his work at FedEx himself. Margo, David and Nicole then depart by car, although the latter did fail to take out the trash bags which she was supposed to do, leaving Laura–not without just cause–reproaching Steve for again letting his daughter off the hook that easily.
Later that day, down at The Orbit, David takes Nicole for a roller-coaster ride. As they take off, Nicole has David stick his hand under her skirt, and she uses it to secretly masturbate. Nicole ends up climaxing when the roller-coaster–having a naturally-convenient body-vibrating function–goes downhill and picks up rattling momentum. A little bit later, David and Nicole can be seen at a shooting gallery. David wins and chooses a peace-pipe for his trophy. However, while he is taking his best shot, Nicole unsuspectingly glances around and when she sees Margo and Logan make out at a nearby stand, Logan suddenly stops kissing, turns to look straight at Nicole and, with a scary look on his face, points a finger directly at her as if to intimidate her. Instantly dismayed, Nicole resumes focusing her attention on David, who hands her the peace-pipe and they wander off to another stand. It remains in doubt as to whether she brought up the disheartening matter with David and it is left unanswered as to what provoked or inspired Logan to do what he did.
In the meanwhile, back at the Walker residence, it’s seven o’clock. Steve’s again talking on the phone to Eddie while simultaneously putting the final results of his assignment into an envelope thinking he has met the deadline before the last postal pick-up comes around at seven. Sleepwalking Steve still thinks he has plenty of time to post his envelope because he thinks it is only half past six, when Eddie pulls him out of his dream by telling him it already is seven. A suddenly alarmed Steve verifies the real time with the wrist-watch he apparently had taken off and which ended up out of sight under a stack of papers next to his monitor, then cries out a cathartic “Shit!“ when realizing he is too late to post his work and have it arrive at its destination in time. (2.2.ii) Thanks to David’s little artifice, Steve therefore now sees himself forced to travel to Vancouver and deliver his work in person.
The next day, before leaving for Canada, Steve tells Nicole to try and have a nice time, sure to remind her of the platitudinal nugget of wisdom that life is short; also adding the not-insignificant parental imperative to let no-one into the house but herself and Toby. Nicole explicitly affirms that she heard what he said, thus implicitly vowing to be obedient. Steve and Laura then take off by car, intending to stay in Vancouver for the weekend.
(2.2.ii| 4.2. In terms of conscience, David now specifically victimizes Steve, and so–consistent with his ab initio militarized attitude toward the father–only increases authentic conscience-tension between himself and Steve. Since there’s no love or care for his victim to be found in David’s immoral action, it does not make sense with respect to his authentic conscience; but it of course makes a whole lot more sense in terms of his inauthentic power-seeking conscience.
In a perfectly Machiavellian stroke, David shows to be able to exercise power over Steve in such a subtle and creepy way that it leaves the victim not only in trouble with his employer but it also stands to push him into a state of confusion as to its cause. How did the clock end up giving the wrong time? Is it a purely mechanical failure, or was it perhaps deliberately manipulated? If the latter, then by whom? It could’ve been either Margo or David — Laura and Nicole couldn’t possibly have done such a malicious thing. . . or could they? Indeed, Margo had tried to charm him, and perhaps she messed with the clock out of spite for being unsuccessful in her seduction attempt. But what about David? Could it have been him when he even said it had been a pleasure to have met Steve?
The father might also have reason to berate himself for not being vigilant enough. Taking off his wrist-watch, was not the wisest of decisions. All those attention-absorbing and possibly headache-causing questions, thanks to David’s selfish and slippery guile, may be expected to go through Steve’s mind right now. Better be more careful next time, Steve (especially when David is around). |2.2.ii)
3. David beats up Gary
Later that evening, already casually neglectful as to her nevertheless acknowledged duty towards her dad, Nicole calls up David and innocently invites him to come on over. David, however, tells her he has to help some friends out with something, but then also assures her that he could come by afterwards. Nicole says that’s fine and then readily gives him the entry-code of the house, thereby already paving the way to see to the breaking of the silent promise she made to Steve. Later that night, David indeed can be seen entering the house, (3.1) finds Nicole sleeping, wakes her up and they have sex, it seemingly being Nicole’s first time.
After the weekend, at the ending of another school-day, Nicole is walking out with Gary, talking about her new fling with David. When they hug while saying goodbye for the day, it so happens that David–intending to pick up Nicole–drives up in the street adjacent to the school’s perimeter. But when spotting them for a distance, he stops and parks his car, jumps out, walks straight up to Nicole and Gary still locked in embrace, and promptly goes full-on psycho by hitting Gary on the back of his head with his fist and does so with such force that it makes his victim fall to the ground; and then immediately follows-up with starting to kick poor Gary in cold and callous fury. Nicole plunges into shock, and while she’s screaming, trying to make David stop, he also–momentarily blinded by rage–hits her, making her fall to the ground as well. While she is sitting helplessly on the ground, David stops after delivering nine solid kicks, (3.2) and only shows surprise when an emotional and teary-eyed Nicole refuses to leave with him as planned, crying at him to leave them alone.
(3.1.i| Nicole breaking her promise, thereby disrespecting her father (and herself), may be described by the following script:
i. Psychic abuse of the Breaking Promise kind: Level = grievous Moral Error; Perp = Nicole; Victim = Steve;
1. Incoming-stage: By allowing to let David in when she promised her dad not to let any outsider into the house, Nicole incurs authentic guilt toward Steve for breaking the (tacit) promise she made to him;
Audience1 = All those present when Nicole breaks her promise: Nicole&David;
Audience2 = All those present when Steve becomes aware that Nicole has broken her promise; [unknown for now]
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Nicole executes a self-actualized practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Nicole-idolatry: Superior by Breaking Promise with Steve/ in front of Audience1/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Name&Body/ by Nicole/ Breaking their Promise with Steve/ in front of Audience1/;
{–} Steve-idolatry: Inferior by Being the victim of Nicole/ Breaking Promise in front of Audience2/ – Using Name&Body/;
Nicole exposes her PrimePidol audiovisually to David, and (not seeing own facial expression) audially to self;
When Steve finds out David has been let into the house by Nicole (see chapter 10), Steve exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to [Audience2 minus Steve], audially to self;
Note that the scene is split, in principle and in general, into two parts — yielding the first part with Audience1, and the second part with Audience2 (although it deserves mention that, in general, it is perfectly possible that Audience1 and Audience2 show overlap, even to the point of coinciding if the cheated party [Steve in this case] were present when the cheating party [Nicole in this case] were in the process of breaking the promise at hand).
3. Rationalization-stage: Nicole initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Nicole-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Break Promise with Steve/ in front of Audience1/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Name&Body/ by Nicole/ Breaking Promise with Steve/ in front of Audience1/;
{–} Steve-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be the victim of Nicole/ Breaking Promise in front of Audience2/ – Using Name&Body/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated primarily over Audience1;
When Steve finds out David has been let into the house by Nicole (see chapter 10), Abstract Pidols are cast over Audience2;
In summary, qualitatively, Nicole incurs authentic guilt toward all the people involved in her promise-breaking act — for now Steve, David and especially herself.
4. Since Steve is as yet not aware of Nicole breaking her promise and Nicole herself likewise does not show any sign of being aware that she did, this script stage is neglected for now — see (10.4). |3.1.i)
(3.2| David’s episode of physical abuse victimizing Gary and Nicole may be described by the following script:
i. Physical Abuse of the Body kind: Level = Moral Crime as to Gary, grievous Moral Error as to Nicole; Perp = David; Victims = Gary&Nicole; Audience = David&Nicole&Gary&Bystanders;
1. Incoming-stage: David incurs authentic guilt toward…
Gary for punching him so hard that it makes him fall to the ground, kicking him nine times;
Nicole for hitting her so hard that it makes her fall to the ground;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: David executes a self-actualized practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} David-idolatry: Superior by Bodily Abusing Gary&Nicole/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} David-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Name&Body/ by David/ Bodily Abusing Gary&Nicole/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Gary-idolatry: Inferior by Getting Bodily Abused by David/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Inferior by Getting Bodily Abused by David/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
Each exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the others of Audience, audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: David initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} David-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Bodily Abuse Gary&Nicole/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} David-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Name&Body/ by David/ Bodily Abusing Gary&Nicole/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Gary-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Bodily Abused by David/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Bodily Abused by David/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
Abstract Pidols are cast primarily over Audience and secondarily over Steve; First three Pidols across Laura;
In summary, qualitatively, David incurs authentic guilt toward the victims and all those other people exposed to the abuse — which are the group of Bystanders, yet more so toward Nicole and especially toward Gary and David himself (note that most Pidols are based on the Perp, David).
By physically abusing Gary, David is usurping the moral high-ground while dismissing Gary to a morally inferior position. David would be (somewhat) justified in carrying out his abuse if, in a hypothetical alternative scenario, it would have enabled him to prevent Gary from abusing Nicole even more. If Gary would really be the clear and present physical menace that David makes him out to be, then David might have had some just cause to rise to the moral high-ground and possibly use physical force to subdue Gary. But since Gary is just Gary the friend and–as such–is not engaged in any sort of abusive behavior, David’s assumption of the moral high-ground obviously is unrighteous in itself (idolatrous), his physical actions victimizing Gary being entirely without merit and warrant, at odds with the truth and reality captured by the Golden Rule.
4. In terms of actualization, as to the particularity specificity, apart from a delusional and temporarily-maniacal David, it is doubtful that anyone with a sane mind would be willing to actualize his practices. Nicole and Gary, as well as any possible bystanders (unless they have a sadistic mindset and or have some kind of personal axe to grind with either victim) may safely be assumed to be unwilling to actualize David’s (stage 2 and 3) practices.
As to the generality specificity, David’s remarkable reaction of surprise when Nicole refuses to leave with him, indicates that he at least at that time felt that he had only done good, as if he was entirely used to dealing with the sort of general situation into which he plunged himself (and dragged Gary and Nicole with him), one in which he from the outset shows to feel righteous and entitled to rush to the general “defense” of someone whom he cared for in the process of being “assaulted”. And so David may be expected to again feel himself righteous and entitled to act out in factually physically abusive ways during similar future situations of “emergency”, even if the basis for doing so would be entirely delusional and disturbed.
In terms of sacrifice, while intoxicated with a reason-overriding commitment to display physical power, by his failure to rein himself in and instead let himself go nuts while guided by his blind psychopathic rage, the sacrifices which David allows himself to make are substantial. He already goes to sacrifice a significant measure of quality in his relationship with his girlfriend and naturally with Gary too. In fact, judging from her emotionally-laden dismissive reaction, David should count himself lucky if she as of now still would want him for a boyfriend. In order to undo the relational damage he is causing, he will have to put his back into making amends. He will have to own up to substantial guilt, make himself appear weak, shamefully weak, which is not an easy task for someone who likes to avoid personal shame as well as project a sense of personal power (one which, sadly, is growing steadily more psychopathic).
In terms of conscience, since the sacrifices which David makes are so recklessly costly, relative to his authentic Golden Rule-oriented conscience, it makes no sense for him to have done what he did. If his ultimate goal is to hold on to his girlfriend, it makes no sense to physically abuse any of her close friends, and also certainly not in her very presence. However, his factually abusive efforts make more sense in terms of his inauthentic power-seeking conscience; and yet David would still have to have a proper reason to manifest his power in the factually overblown way which he did. David can’t just throw some violence into the mix for no reason, that would make him look like a bully, and there’s no sympathy to be had for someone showing physical power just for the hell of it; or worse, for the purpose of showing off. Indeed, in order to appear just in his power, preferably to the point of coming across as heroic and noble, David would be needing a proper excuse to make it seem as if he’s only coming to the rescue of a girlfriend in need. |3.2)
When she goes back home, after having taken a shower, Nicole notices that David inadvertently gave her a shiner. Laura knocks on the door and enters the bathroom, notices Nicole’s black-eye and asks what happened. But rather than tell the truth, Nicole decides to float a little subterfuge of the shame-avoiding kind on her own. She tells her step-mother that she caught an elbow in the eye during gym-class while playing volleyball. (3.3) Laura seems to buy into it, and then helps her step-daughter cover up the outward sign of the accidental abuse through strategically applying make-up. By promoting her instrumental fantasy involving volleyball and someone’s elbow, Nicole is thereby trying to present herself in such a way that it appears as if David hadn’t hit her at all, thus implicitly protecting also David by implicitly making him appear as if he was more innocent than truth and reality permits.
(3.3| As such, Nicole’s little subterfuge–explicitly seeking to avoid personal shame as well as implicitly letting David off the hook–may be described by the following script:
i. Psychic Abuse of the Deceptive kind: Level = Moral Error; Perp = Nicole; Audience = Victims = Nicole&Laura;
1. Incoming-stage: Nicole initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Nicole-idolatry:[X] Being a mere victim of a hapless volleyball accident;
{+} David-idolatry:[M] Having nothing to do with Nicole’s black-eye, no causative role whatsoever;
Abstract Pidols are primarily disseminated over Audience, followed by secondarily casting across Steve&…;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Nicole executes a self-actualized practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Nicole-idolatry: Superior by Lying to Audience/ about Nicole&David/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole|Laura-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied to by Nicole/ Lying about Nicole&David/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied about by Nicole/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Nicole/ Lying to Audience/ about Nicole&David/;
Nicole/Laura exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to the other, and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Nicole initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Nicole-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Lie to Audience/ about Nicole&David/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole|Laura-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied to by Nicole/ Lying about Nicole&David/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole|David-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied about by Nicole/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Nicole/ Lying to Audience/ about Nicole&David/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Nicole and all the people who end up aware of her act of deception, including Steve;
In summary, qualitatively, Nicole incurs authentic guilt toward all the people whom she involves in her act of deception — which, for now, is (especially) herself as well as the other people she lies to and lies about: Laura&David.
4. In terms of actualization, her efforts to fool Laura seem to pay off, as her step-mother seems readily willing to gullibly-actualize the step-daughter’s stage 1 practices; which Nicole probably does not do herself though, given the fact that she flashed a subtle yet rather guilty look when passing her fictitious excuse unto Laura, and so seems entirely aware of engaging in deception; as to whether she would have likewise trouble to rationalize-actualize her stage 2 and 3 practices remains to be seen. Whether Skeptical Steve is willing to buy into Nicole’s deception also remains to be seen.
In terms of sacrifice, Nicole goes to sacrifice a little bit of quality in her relationship with Laura as she will now have reason to fear reproach coming from her if the step-mother were to find out having been deceived by the step-daughter. The same goes for Steve, although he probably won’t be misled as easily as his wife, he would just the same have just cause to object being subjected to her attempt at deceit, her attempt to introduce falsity into his mind. By now having willfully introduced an element of guilt-based fear into her relationship with Laura as well as Steve, Nicole’s capacity to effectively and spontaneously love them stands to be (slightly) negatively affected — although such regrettable adverse developments may of course be reversed if she were to come clean about her subtle campaigns of deceit, and apologize. Even though he didn’t force Nicole to lie, it is thanks to David that Nicole has been put into a position at which she is now trying to deceive Laura and Steve. Hence, David also deserves to be held culpable for facilitating Nicole’s follow-up deception.
In terms of conscience, with respect to her authentic conscience, by lying to Laura, Nicole generates only more authentic conscience-tension between them from her end and so makes little sense. With respect to her inauthentic shame-avoiding conscience, however, by lying to Laura, she avoids the shame of admitting to have suffered abuse at the hands of David and–by implication–to have made a (possible) judgment error in choosing David for a boyfriend; she also avoids the related obligation to admit having lied to her guardian earlier about her watch being broken. By airing the fake excuse which she did, she protects herself and David from punitive shame; it’s as if, on some level of consciousness, she either doesn’t want to give him up so quickly and or resents having to process shame. |3.3)
A few minutes later, Nicole is ready to leave for school. She and Laura emerge from the upstairs bathroom and descend down the stairs into the living room, where Steve is receiving them. Nicole is sure to thank Laura right before she takes off, inspiring Steve to ask Laura “what was that all about?“ Laura innocently tells him that such would be “woman stuff. She got a black eye in gym class, so I gave her a makeup lesson. So she wouldn’t look like a slut.“ Laura thus casually goes to pass Nicole’s lie unto Steve.
And by nonchalantly propagating Nicole’s lie unto Steve, by her own efforts to introduce falsity into Steve’s mind, Laura also goes to incur authentic guilt toward her husband, even though she of course shows to as yet be entirely unaware of acting as an agent of deception (unwitting agent). However, Laura wouldn’t effectively be lying for Nicole’s benefit if the latter hadn’t initiated the deception first, and so Nicole deserves to share in the culpability for Laura now incurring guilt toward Steve (and also toward herself for lying to herself). Technically, Laura also incurs authentic guilt toward Nicole for lying about her, for promoting a false picture of her, although of course obviously Nicole is to large extent obligated to share in the blame for that too.
In turn, Nicole would not be lying if it were not for David’s little violent stunt over at school, and so David likewise deserves to be held responsible for facilitating Laura’s efforts to now deceive Steve — thus causing David to incur guilt toward everyone now involved: Nicole, Laura and Steve. As a result of his violent fit, David thus comes out being the foundational facilitator when it comes to exposing all those he came to involve, to falsity (counterfeit reality) and therefore insanity (counterfeit sanity).
3.1 Still defending David
Back at school, Nicole meets with Gary. She tells him she doesn’t think wanting to ever see David again. He rejoins that David–referring to him as “Travis Bickle“ (ref to Taxi Driver from 1976)–has given him “goddamn nightmares“; to which she apologizes and that the whole ordeal has left her “incredibly confused“. What they don’t know, however, is that all-the-while David has been stalking them from a distance, following them right into school; and when they disappear into a classroom, David leaves a note for Nicole in her locker.
When she opens up her locker after class, the note–admittedly commendably humble–says: “Nicole, I can’t begin to describe how sorry I am. Please meet me at Largo after school, I’ll be waiting for you, Love, David.“ Over at the joint called Largo, David would nonetheless wait in vain, Nicole never showed.
The next day, over at the Walker residence, Laura receives flowers by delivery. Addressed to Nicole, Laura hands them to her, which she sadly is sure to dump straight into the trash. She faces Laura immediately afterward and is about to explain herself, but then shows to have a change of heart when adding to never mind.
In the evening, Laura and Steve are lying in bed when they hear Nicole crying. Laura gets up and goes over to Nicole’s bedroom to comfort her.
Laura: “Were the flowers from him?“
Nicole: “Yeah. It’s just like him, you know? He’s always so polite and considerate. He never has to show off the way other guys do. Then all of a sudden, he turns into a monster. I mean, Gary was down on the ground, and David just kept on kicking him and kicking him so hard!“
Steve wanders into the room with a box of Kleenex.
Steve: “Did he give you the black eye too? Did he?“
Nicole: “Dad, I told you how I got the black eye.“ (3.4)
She starts to cry and sits up to claim and receive a consoling hug from Laura.
Laura: “Steven, why don’t you let us finish up here? Toss me the Kleenex?“
Steve discovers an empty condom wrapper underneath Nicole’s bed. It’s obvious to whom it belonged, and yet fails to confront her with it in direct fashion (which is arguably regrettable) and instead launches into a partially self-accusatory prejudicial diatribe.
Steve: “Nicole, I want you to understand that whatever you think I may have done to disappoint you, is no reason for you to go screw up your whole life.“
Nicole: “What? Dad, I don’t know what you’re talking about.“
Steve: “That’s what worries me.“
Nicole: “Look, Dad, this may come as a big shock to you, but every move I make does not have to do with you. Turns out I’m living my own life.“
Steve is sure to remind his underage daughter of his natural parental rights and responsibilities.
Steve: “Not yet you’re not. As long as you’re living in my house, you’ll follow my rules. That means when you wanna go out, I wanna know where you’re going and with who. And if I don’t like it, you’re not going.“
Nicole: “Don’t be ridiculous, Dad.“
Steve: (emphatic) “I’m not kidding, Nicole. This is gonna stop!“
Nicole: “What? Why don’t you just say it? This is all about David.“
Steve: “There’s something wrong with him.“
Nicole: “That’s your problem, not mine.“
Steve: “He’s not a good guy.” (3.5)
Nicole: “Look, Dad. David and I had a disagreement. Maybe we’ll get past it, maybe we won’t. But no matter what happens, it’ll be between us. This doesn’t have anything to do with you.“
(3.4| Nicole reaffirms her account of deceit in front of Steve and also Laura, thus incurring only even more authentic guilt toward them for her reinforced attempt to draw them both away from perfect truth and therefore perfect sanity of mind. As such, she makes it a little bit harder for herself to love Laura and Steve with natural and unspoiled spontaneity, due to now having to process an increased love-interfering load of guilt-induced fear for their reproach, justified reproach in principle.
Her reaffirmed deception may be captured by the following script:
i. Psychic Abuse of the Deceptive kind, implicit repetitive lie, lying by omission: Level = Moral Error; Perp = Nicole; Audience = Victims = Nicole&Steve&Laura;
1. Incoming-stage: Nicole initiates a potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Nicole-idolatry:[M] Still being a mere victim of a hapless volleyball accident;
{+} David-idolatry:[M] Still having nothing to do with Nicole’s black-eye, no causative role whatsoever;
Abstract Pidols are cast over Audience;
2. Scene of Immorality-stage: Nicole executes a self-actualized practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted…
{+} Nicole-idolatry: Superior by Lying to Audience/ about Nicole&David/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole|Steve|Laura-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied to by Nicole/ Lying about Nicole&David/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Inferior by Being Lied about by Nicole/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Nicole/ Lying to Audience/ about Nicole&David/;
Nicole|Steve|Laura exposes PrimePidol audiovisually to [Audience minus Nicole|Steve|Laura], and audially to self;
3. Rationalization-stage: Nicole initiates an implicit potential practice of Abstract…
{+} Nicole-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Lie to Audience/ about Nicole&David/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole|Steve|Laura-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied to by Nicole/ Lying about Nicole&David/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole|David-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Lied about by Nicole/ Lying to Audience/ – Using Verbality&Name&Body/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Verbality&Name&Body/ by Nicole/ Lying to Audience/ about Nicole&David/;
Abstract Pidols are cast over Nicole and other people who end up aware of Nicole’s implicit lying act;
In summary, qualitatively, Nicole incurs authentic guilt toward all the people whom she involves in her act of deception — which, for now, is (especially) herself as well as the other people she lies to and lies about: Steve&Laura&David.
4. In terms of actualization, Laura is probably the only one who still buys into Nicole’s fake excuse (and if so, goes ahead to once again gullibly-actualize Nicole’s stage 1 practices). Nicole herself probably doesn’t, and neither does Steve (whether both would be willing to rationalize-actualize her stage 2&3 practices remains to be seen).
In terms of sacrifice, by exposing them to an enhanced attempt at deception, by trying to draw them away from truth and sanity yet again, Nicole only puts more quality of her relationship with her guardians on the line.
In terms of conscience, with respect to her authentic conscience, given the trouble she raises for herself, her tenacious clinging on to a fictitious version of reality makes no sense. But with respect to her inauthentic conscience connected to her devotion to shame-avoidance, it makes more sense in that she protects herself as well as David and the relationship they might still be having (even though truth more-and-more becomes its casualty). |3.4)
(3.5| Steve is correct in his observation that there is something wrong with David. However, by declaring that “he’s not a good guy“, Steve may be held to account for being a bit prematurely judgmental of David. By prejudging him to not be good, Steve makes it harder for himself to acknowledge David’s possible efforts to work toward becoming that good guy. For if David would manage to come out looking like that good guy, Steve–courtesy of his then-prior judgment of David–might prefer to blind himself to such development, if for no other reason than that it would show Steve having erred in his assessment of David. And so by prejudging David to not be a good guy, Steve also creates an ego-based need for David to be the bad guy that Steve implies him to be, and to also remain that bad guy — in order to continue proving Steve to have been right. I’m not saying that Steve would be categorically unwilling to embrace a new and improved version of David, but by a priori judging the younger so resolutely in his disfavor, Steve makes it harder for himself to be flexible and adaptive in his future assessments of David — and, in general, of any person he judges the personhood in such decisive and total manner (strictly speaking only God, courtesy of God’s infallibility resulting from God’s omniscience, can judge the totality of any person out there). |3.5)
Steve then turns around and leaves Nicole’s bedroom, sure to bring with him the empty condom wrapper as evidence. Laura joins Steve in the living room shortly after.
Laura: “What the hell was that about?“
He shows her the condom wrapper.
Laura: “Oh, boy.“
Steve: “He hit her too, Laura. I know he did.“ (3.6)
Laura: “Oh come on. You heard what she said.“
Steve: “I don’t care what anybody says. He hit her.“
Laura: “Fine. But don’t think you can bully her into growing up, Steven. It doesn’t work that way.“
(3.6| As anticipated, in spite of his daughter’s reinforced attempt to foist her deception unto him, Steve is unwilling to buy into it. Good for him. By refuting her deception, he shows unwillingness to gullibly-actualize her practices — although it does have to be mentioned that Steve again does appear to be a bit prejudicial in his assessment. What if, hypothetically, Nicole really had told the truth in that her excuse was no excuse at all? It then would have turned out that Steve had made an error of judgment, falsely accusing David based on faulty intuition, thus inadvertently painting him as an abusive type of guy and by so doing created for Steve an ego-based need for David to also be that abusive bad guy, lest making Steve look like an erring type of judge, one in need of judgment himself. Luckily for Steve, however, his parental intuition in this case was accurate; but careful, in general, not to rush to judgment. |3.6)
Nicole opens up the trash-can, takes out the package she threw away earlier that day, and retrieves the photos which David had included: booth-photos in which she poses with him. It indeed does seem that she’s not quite ready to say goodbye to him yet.
4. David makes up with Nicole
Either the next day or a few days later, Nicole is over at Margo’s place, sitting by the pool, sunbathing. Her friend shows to not make a big deal out of what David did in actuality:
Margo: “So he hit ya. Sometimes that’s just their asshole way of showing they love you.“
Nicole: “He didn’t mean to hit me. It was an accident.“
Margo: “Fine. So then what’s the problem?“
Nicole: “I don’t know.“
Margo: “Do yourself a favor and don’t think so much. It gives you premature wrinkles.“
Nicole: “My dad hates him, that’s for sure.“
Margo: “Well, that means that he knows you’re sleeping together. You know, it’s that usual weirdo jealously trip.“
Nicole: “How could he possibly know we were sleeping together?“
Margo: “Caught ya, ya ho! You never told me you were screwin’ him! Ach! Tch. You’ll always remember your first. Not your second, not your third. Just your first.“
At that precise moment, Logan, David and the rest happen to drop by. Margo lets out an “oh shit“, yet playfully, sensing only all-too-well what’s coming up next. A few seconds later, Logan, still wearing clothes minus jacket, grabs Margo and jumps into the pool and drags her with him. In the meantime, Nicole silently takes off in order to avoid a confrontation with David — whom, however, is sure to run after her and catches up right when she’s about to drive away in her car:
David: “Nicole. Nicole. Just give me one minute?“
Nicole sighs and turns off the engine.
David: “Listen, I know you never wanna see me again, but I still have to explain. There’s nothin’ that I can say that’ll make what I did all right. I know that, but I need you to know that it came from someplace good. It came from me feelin’ like I’d do anything to protect you.“
Nicole: “From Gary?“
David: “I didn’t know it was Gary, I swear. All I saw was some guy with his paws all over you. I mean, knowin’ how many bad guys are out there… guys that would take advantage of somebody like you. Guys that I would kill if they ever did anything to hurt you.“ <sighs> “I just lost it. I want you to know that I’m very sorry about what happened to Gary, I am. But I can’t be sorry that I love you. I learned from you, Nicole, I really did. I learned that I need people more than I thought. I’ve always been the one takin’ care of things. And with you, it’s different. And I want us to take care of each other. And I’ll promise nothin’ like that will ever happen again. I’m sorry.” (4.1)
David shows to initially have justified his violent act toward Gary by seeing him as a threat — allegedly mistakenly seeing him as one of those “many bad guys out there“, only dying to take advantage of somebody like her. But since obviously Gary in reality was nowhere near the menace that David made him out to be, it may have been that David’s perception suffered from a distortion at least during the critical moment when he saw Gary hugging Nicole. David’s displayed violent action would then serve as an indication of the existence of a broader underlying psychopathology that is reminiscent of the perception distortion seen in the garden-variety paranoid schizophrenic, the latter whom–by suffering from fear-induced delusions of persecution–likewise sees evil where there is none (or not enough), and then ironically risks ending up creating evil by (preemptively) treating in evil manner the people (or beings) whom he or she had deluded themselves into believing were acting out in evil ways, ostensible ways which especially were to serve victimizing the paranoid schizophrenic (or the ones under their wing of protection).
(4.1| According to David’s confession, his delusional perception comes down to the following script of immoral conduct, though this time not real but of an imaginary nature; and since it’s a figment of David’s hyper-protective imagination, David not Gary incurs the authentic blame for it.
i. Imaginary Physical Abuse of the Body kind: Level = Moral Error; Perp = Gary; Victim = Nicole; Audience = David&Nicole&Gary&Bystanders;
1. Imaginary Incoming-stage: David is responsible for incurring the authentic guilt which he implies to previously believe Gary (not recognized as such) incurred for all-but molesting her or at any rate touching her indecently as if Gary were some stranger scary kind of bad guy being offensively intimate with her;
2. Imaginary Scene of Immorality-stage: David executes a self-actualized practice of Concrete PrimePidol-targeted. . .
{+} Gary-idolatry: Superior by Bodily Abusing Nicole/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} Gary-idolatry: Inferior by Being Used in Name&Body/ by Gary/ to Bodily Abuse Nicole/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Inferior by Being Bodily Abused by Gary/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
Each exposes their PrimePidol audiovisually to others of Audience (including David’s perceptually distorted mind), audially to self;
3. Imaginary Rationalization-stage: David initiates an implicit private practice of Abstract . . .
{+} Gary-idolatry: Righteous and Entitled to Bodily Abuse Nicole/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
{–} Gary-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Used in Name&Body/ by Gary/ Bodily Abusing Nicole/ in front of Audience/;
{–} Nicole-idolatry: Unrighteous and Deserving to be Bodily Abused by Gary/ in front of Audience/ – Using Name&Body/;
Abstract Pidols are disseminated over Audience;
In summary, qualitatively, David incurs the guilt which he effectively imagines Gary incurred guilt toward his ostensible victim and all those other people exposed to the abuse — which are David, some Bystanders, but more so toward Nicole and especially toward Gary.
4. Courtesy of his perverted perception, in terms of his inauthentic power-seeking conscience (easily susceptible to psychopathic tendencies for its bearer), David would feel himself entirely vindicated to showcase his physical power by abusing Gary the way he did, seeing himself doing no more than valiantly coming to the rescue of his girlfriend in the process of being molested and assaulted, or at least being touched indecently, and obviously not by Gary but someone else, since David wouldn’t have assaulted the guy had he known it was Gary the dearly-beloved friend. Even though he–in reality–obviously was acting on an egosyntonic delusion, and was incurring a painfully costly guilt-burden in terms of his authentic non-delusional conscience, in his inauthentic conscientious world, he got to play the brave intervening hero annex lover saving the day; and was only surprised to find that the girl he sought to defend responded in the exact opposite way he expected her to react.
And by seeing Gary through the distorting and delusional lens of make-believe evil, by externalizing and focusing all of his “protectively”-intervening attention on the ostensibly overwhelming evil manifested by his impromptu enemy, David afforded himself the heedless conscientious liberty to remain blind to his own subsequent evil behavior directed at Gary; i.e., provided he was being truthful in his confession in that he really did see Gary as the bad guy he made him out to be, by staring himself blind on the supposed evil coming from Gary, David failed to see that his own physical violence directed at Gary could possibly be excessive and moreover misplaced and unwarranted. In other words, David came to act as a monster toward Gary precisely because he saw his victim as one first. |4.1)
What David seems to have a hard time recognizing is that his episode of abuse begs more than anything to be reinterpreted in terms of jealousy, as it could very well be that hair-triggered type of jealousy–in fact–inspired him to embrace the twisted perception of Gary being inappropriately intimate with Nicole; a decision, irrational though it was, offering him an egosyntonic and superficially-plausible motive to jump Gary. For someone who seeks to project an image of power and superiority, it would naturally be egodystonic to admit suffering from a bout of jealousy, as it would make him look weak, at want, defective and therefore inferior (in other words, admitting jealousy would have deflationary effects to the person being so, much like what kryptonite is to Superman).
David therefore had to first have a good reason for admitting having acted on jealousy, and when that occasion did present itself, to preferably do so while not admitting in direct fashion having factually been jealous, but circumstantially, indirectly, implicitly and arguably not even entirely consciously. Said reason came in the form of Nicole abruptly giving him the cold shoulder, thus forcing him to reconsider the moral nature of his heedlessly violent action, forcing him to wake-up from his self-glorifying power-idolizing slumber perhaps for the first time ever — since, after all, before he had the epiphany he now seems to be having (inspirational courtesy of Nicole), he always used to be “the one takin’ care of things“. In principle, to his credit, this moment of personal awakening may constitute a commendable development as to his character (but its still delicate primal nature requires careful future nurturing, lest coming down and crashing the whole party if he’s shamed more than his frail loner psychic constitution can handle).
Later that day, Steve returns home from work, only to find Nicole, Laura and David spending time at their pool during a warm and sunlit day. When she spots her husband, Laura swims over to the other side of the pool and gets out to welcome Steve — whose face already has written “none-too-pleased” all over it.
Laura: “Hey there! Isn’t this Indian summer great?“
Steve: (tense and wary) “What’s goin’ on?“
Laura: “Well, it’s warm. We’re taking advantage. You oughta jump in.“
Steve: (ticked off) “What’s he doin’ here? What’s he doin’ here, Laura?“
Laura: “Steven, would you rather she lied and snuck off to see him? You made the rules.“
Steve stands there, looking with judgmental unhappiness in his eyes as Nicole is locked in embrace with David. While David is kissing his daughter, rather than looking at her, Davidends up looking at Steve and–in response to Steve’s disapproving look–assumes a cold sort of gaze that says: she’s mine now, better get used to it; I won and the winner takes all. David seems to feel as if Steve is looking at him competitively and it may inspire the younger rival to once again succumb to the probably quite familiar temptation to project an image of superseding personal power in Steve’s direction, the sort of power which spells possessiveness, personal victory and therefore radiates superiority and dominance. Even though David’s displayed return gesture is subtle and nonverbal, it’s nonetheless enough to appear making Steve’s skin crawl already.
The next day, Steve calls up Laura. It is evident that either he himself did, or had someone else do, some research into the personal background of David.
Steve: “You remember that song and dance Nicole gave us… about David growing up like Beaver Cleaver in some perfect little town back East?“
Laura: “Yeah, something like that.“
Steve: “Well, guess again. The kid bounced from foster home to foster home to institution… until he was finally kicked out on his ass at 18. Since then, no one knows. He’s got no family, no address, no work record… nothin’.“
Laura: “All right. So the guy’s embarrassed about being an orphan. Not his fault, by the way. So he makes up a story about having a happy childhood to impress a girl. What’s the big deal?“
Steve: “The big deal, Laura, is that the guy give me the creeps… and the girl is my daughter.“
Steve then promptly hangs up the phone in anger.
Presuming Steve is accurate and truthful, it turns out that David did lie to Nicole and so the contents of script (1.1) has been validated. What is somewhat worrisome is Laura’s lethargic and almost apologetic reaction to the news that Nicole’s boyfriend resorted to deception to charm her — as if it so readily could be excused and nonchalantly brushed off that David right-off-the-bat resorted to deception at the start of his relationship with Nicole.
Phil's Philosophy 