More on Submission

ClosedThe First Submission

Essential Distinctions

I have encountered more misunderstanding with submission than any other vehicle. It is essential to distinguish between:

  • The Obedience Quest-RH'L6 does require submission to the role, rules, rituals and procedures of any organization or group that is chosen. However, that submission is voluntarily chosen. If a person does not find the situation satisfactory and does not wish to submit to its disciplines, then (subject to the particular situation) a new setting for obedience can be found. The strength of the inner feeling of submission probably depends on the person and the particular setting. Religious settings overtly oriented to ego-control proclaim submission as significant, while other settings may just take it for granted.
  • Note that there is no specific Injunction: Submit!—even corresponding to the Obedience Quest-RH'6. Instead, the RH"6 Injunction is: Heed What's Right-RH"L6, which demands autonomy and self-assertion. Recall that Primal Injunctions are a set of life rules oriented to goodness via the restraint of egocentricity. They are nested within the Obedience Quest-RH'6. While adherence to the Injunctions is optional, it is meaningful to refer to «a requirement to submit» to them. However, in this, they are like any purpose, value or ethical rule.
  • Submission-RsH"G16 comes into the taxonomy as the Vehicle for Goodness that emerges from Heed What's Right-RH'L6. That means it exists to enable the use of ultimate values so as to deliver spiritual energy. As the Groupings are developed by combining submission-R"G16 with adjacent vehicles, you will see how this plays out in additional ways as the framework is developed.
    ClosedExamples of Submission ►

Some Specific Confusions

Society-A regards submission as a core social value-PH6L5 which is supported by traditional religious doctrine-PH6L6. Society-B never mentions submission, and the prominent social value is self-assertion, with support from an ideology of capitalism and a philosophy of individualism.

However, submission applies identically in the two societies insofar as members have to submit to their society's social values and cultural institutions. If they do not, they will find life difficult and, at the extreme, may even become misfits or outcasts. The authentic exercise of virtue may then be problematic, and it is certainly not a way to enable social change.

More: ClosedOnce you genuinely hold a purpose or value of any sort, you become responsible for it and it should shape what you choose and do. That equates to submission and is relevant to the present framework for producing goodness.

All organizations need to assign authority legitimately so some members can formally instruct others who must obey. There are organizations that are built around an ethos of an explicit chain of command and the unequivocal requirement to follow orders e.g. the military, the police, ambulance services, nursing, some highly bureaucratized agencies.

Submission based on following properly authorized orders should be viewed as a role requirement i.e. an assertion of requisite work-performance. It was proposed some decades ago, at the Nuremberg trials, that this is not a justification for immoral acts or war crimes i.e. the Primal Injunction to Heed What's Right takes precedence.

Submission is also commonly associated with informal power relationships where the spontaneous counterpart is dominance. A dominance/submission pattern is the norm in criminal gangs, political life and some close relationships. These are ego-based issues and nothing to do with the topics being examined here.

Political revolt and youthful rebellion may be evidence of submission-R"G16 when zeal is based on integrity and deep feelings for justice, peace or truth.

The older generation has typically produced or at least tolerated an imperfect society. Too often the young adult inherits a society ravaged by war &/or a criminally corrupted government. Idealism is required even to think about repairing and improving society, and so rebellious attitudes are to be welcomed.

The cause-centred revolutionary similarly builds his life around ideals and values like equality or liberty that have the potential for improving society. Submission to these is worthy of respect.

Degeneration of revolutionary zeal into mindless bloodlust and terror (as occurred in the French Revolution) is something else. Social turmoil commonly attracts psychopaths, psychotics, power-mongers, and lovers of violence for whom submission and goodness are meaningless and irrelevant.

Originally posted: 29-Mar-2013