A Rites-of-Submission Fantasy can be a powerful fantasy. It is well to remember, of course, that it is only a fantasy. There is something in a woman that wants to surrender itself to a strong, desirable male. In a sense, sexually, a woman does frequently wish to be dominated. The I-am-his-slave fantasy, so to speak, is a common one for the female. It is, of course, only one side of the complex, marvelous creatures that are women. There is also a side that desires and deserves independence. Women are gloriously complicated. They are part companion, part slave girl. A man is very lucky to have both. If he has only one, I think he has been short changed. Another obviously distorted fantasy element in the preceding is the “rejection of psychological shackles” element. That is a powerful element, and valuable in fantasy. On the other hand, it is well to remind ourselves that restraints are a necessary condition for civilization and an acceptable human existence as we know it. They are necessary to protect us, the one from the other. There is nothing wrong with conditioning per se, any more than that there is something wrong with habits. Obviously much depends on what the conditioning is; much depends on what the habits are. Conditioning and habit, of course, must not be blind; they must be recognized and rationally approved; we must be the masters of our conditioning, and of our habits, not vice-versa. It is sometimes hard to do this, of course. It is always easier, for example, to break a conditioning pattern in one’s offspring than in one’s self. This is how one generation helps the next to free itself; that the more liberated generation does not realize the debt owed to the liberating generation, which refused to repeat their own conditioning patterns in them is an irony, one which may be placed to the ignorance of the young; when they are in their forties and fifties, they will realize what was done for them. One advantage of an open society, incidentally, is that one encounters alternative conditioning patterns, and must thus come to grips with alternative possibilities for the realization of humanity, and perhaps even find oneself forced to make a choice as to how one will select and realize the human potential in one’s own self. An open society helps keep people on top of their own conditioning, which is where they belong. The value sets of many people, even in a free society, are nothing more than reflex spasms programmed into them. An open society, however, gives humanity a chance to find itself. This is also, incidentally, an argument for the retention of the family as a basic social unit. Millions of families provide millions of experimental laboratories in which different human possibilities can be protected and cherished, or invented and nurtured. Even if the great state nurseries and baby farms of the Utopians could provide emotional security, trust and love, intimate love, say, as between a mother and child, it seems unlikely they would do much for the nobility of human beings. They would, in effect, imprison humanity invisibly. We would become interchangeable units, all bent and twisted in the same planes. When the family is destroyed, the mass-produced human being will take its place. Mass-produced human beings are attractive only to those who expect to be their benevolent mass producers. Life is too short and too precious to waste it living out someone else’s values. We must find our own. A natural concomitant, of course, of the attempt to maximize freedom and the opportunity for diverse realizations of the human potentiality is the commitment to tolerance and the respect for others. Their freedom ends where it bumps yours. As a judge once said, or something to this effect, the freedom to swing your arm stops where the other fellow’s nose starts. Civilization is fragile, and depends on restraint, and, to a certain extent, on genuine frustration. It is, however, preferable to the jungle. We, on the other hand, retain something of the jungle in our blood. We are new to civilization, and have not quite caught the hang of it yet. We have surely bungled several civilizations, and we may bungle the current one. Indeed, to those with some awareness of history, there is much evidence that we are well along in the process of doing so. Civilization, however, is far better than the jungle. If it weren’t, we would still be in the jungle. If this civilization falls to the internal and external barbarians, doubtless another will take its place, a stronger one, one without the weaknesses of tolerance and freedom. America, and the western world, may become, in retrospect, a brief, bright moment in history, like Periclean Athens, the secret memory of a few intellectuals who have managed to preserve outlawed texts. Tolerance and freedom, of course, may not be weaknesses but strengths. We are currently in the process of finding out. But civilization, even a totalitarian civilization, such as would be the practical implementation of Marx’s naive dreams in a technological century, would presumably be preferable to hunting our food in the streets. Rational human beings, statistically, will choose even a terrible civilization to the law of the knife. Either hideous prong of totalitarianism, state capitalism, as in “communist” countries, or fascism, would be preferable to the horrors of murdering to eat. Accordingly, human beings will, and doubtless should, choose civilization over the jungle. The choice is not going to be between civilization and the jungle but between competitive civilizations. On the other hand, we carry the jungle about with us. In the fantasy which we have delineated, certain concessions are made to the jungle in us. This can be liberating and delicious. It expresses a side of our personality, that of the hunter and predator. This is a side which, in actual life, that we may live together as humans and not animals, must be suppressed. In fantasy, however, it may be joyously liberated. In fantasy we may laugh like gods freed of their chains. It is good to do so. How many of us have ever so laughed? In fantasy we may do exactly as we please. Who can believe that it is not healthy and happy for a human being, sometime, to do exactly as he pleases?