Projection in Two Forms:

The theory of projection is a form of leveling, and, like all forms of leveling, it lowers standards. It would have us all believe that, given that we're all alike at heart, the proper answer to an act of evil is not hatred but acceptance of the same potentiality within oneself. Through "choosing" sympathy *instead* of hatred, one "becomes aware" of one's "potential" to commit the same offence, and, by so doing, one ensures two things: that one does not commit the same offence and that, devoid of hatred, one does not commit another in avenging what was done.

 

Yet even as I write this I am nauseated by the thought of so reducing all that's great and beautiful to that which is most base and vile, for to do so *is, in fact* to let the base and vile win, succeeding in its project which *is* base and vile *for the very reason that* it swallows all that's great and beautiful within its muck. Such is the attitude of envy, and it is divorced from sympathy in truth. We sympathize with those with whom we recognize a *real* connection, neither a projection of "potential" *nor* of "basic human nature".


Listening to jazz, I understand why Sartre (who loved jazz as well as I do) had rejected any "underlying nature" which we might appeal to. Everything is simply *what it is*, and often it is just as it appears to be; the ignorance arises in ascribing qualities which are not there, obscuring what is plain and obvious for all to see.


So, to the accusation that I hate the monster only owing to an evil in myself, my answer is that I can prove that I have cause to hate this monster, while you cannot prove that such a cause exists within my Soul. To make that claim, without a warrant, by appeal to "universal human nature", is, in fact, to make an accusation that's unjust, and it is in the nature of a monster to make accusations of this kind.


Leontes from *The Winter's Tale* is such a monster. I will not deny that I am almost moved to pity him, and I would even say that, should you find you sympathize with him, to some extent, initially, or even up through the Third Act, then that alone does *not* mean that you share a nature with him. Yet the possibility of sympathy for those who *are distinct* from us must only underscore the fact that we're *not* all the same, and that creates the possibility for hatred that is justified, since the rejection of all hatred is derived from the assumption that we're all the same. In turn, the recognition that we differ also means that any sympathy we feel for Others who are different from us is incomplete; true sympathy, beyond mere pity, is the recognition of myself within the Other, and, as such, it's only virtuous if that same Other is a character of virtue.


So, my answer to the advocates for tolerance is this: that it is not enough. To have "potential" to commit an evil is too much, and it's not pride but honour which would keep us from confessing to this accusation, which is hardly true of all, thank God. Perhaps the lesser members of the species will find comfort in the thought that they're aware of these potentialities and, by so being self-aware, they would defend themselves against those sins becoming actual. Yet they would bargain all their dignity away should they assume that they are the superiors of those who claim they have no such potentialities, for those who make this claim, if it is true, are the superiors of those who have these vile tendencies but who suppress them consciously, and, when the lesser man, who must acknowledge and suppress his nature, tries to put this burden on the greater man, the lesser man becomes an evil man, for making such an accusation hurts not only those who are superior to him in nature, but it also slanders the entire fact that there is purity of Soul and that some natures simply don't possess the same potentiality for Evil as do others, and accusing them of that which they do not possess would only make them agonize over a lie, suppressing their potential in the way Hermione was suppressed within *The Winter's Tale*: that is, suppressing the potential to do good, for she was made to suffer the projection of her husband's evil.


In conclusion: yes, projection is a problem. Yet assuming it's a *universal* problem only makes it worse for those who suffer from it. They must learn the *reason why* it is a problem: not that it would make some men inferior to others, but instead that it would make superiors in virtue suffer for the sins of their inferiors. It's not that all of us are evil and, by recognizing evil in oneself, one helps control it more effectively. To "recognize it in oneself" is bad enough; it ought to never have been there at all, and, if it is, it must be recognized as a particular, a mark of shame that's not to be accepted but to be eradicated or controlled, that it won't blemish those who do not have the selfsame defect in their Souls.


**[({R.G.)}]**


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