392 becoming more human by becoming more godlike
into self- hatred and hatred of the God in whom we can no longer
believe.
Th e ambivalence that darkens the life of encounter expresses a truth
about the self. Th is truth is the contradictory character of the condi-
tions of in de pen dent selfh ood. Th e nature and resolution of these con-
tradictions are the subject of the undeveloped and suppressed ortho-
doxy about the self and its relation to other selves in the tradition of the
struggle with the world.
Altruism cannot serve as a suffi cient antidote to this poisoning of
social life by our ambivalence to one another. For the altruism that has
provided moral philosophy with its chief theme and thesis is closer to
being part of the problem than it is to being part of the solution. In its
single- minded concern with the restraint to be imposed on self- interest,
it fails to address the confl ict between our need for others and the jeop-
ardy in which they place us. It is silent about the fundamental require-
ment of our reconciliation with others: the capacity to imagine them. It
supports a patronizing benevolence, off ered from a distance, that may
itself represent an exercise of power and a form of cruelty.
Th e only axis of our moral development that can off er the prospect
of attenuating our ambivalence and of moderating the confl ict between
the enabling conditions of self- assertion is the one that goes from love,
in our most intimate experience, to a community based upon recipro-
cal engagement and recognized diff erence, rather than upon similarity
or sameness, in our continuing attachments. From there, it extends to
the reform of the division of labor in the spirit of the higher forms of
cooperation.
Th e defi ning attribute of love is the recognition and embrace of the
beloved as a completion and affi rmation of one’s own existence. Th e es-
sential test of its transformative power is the ability to fl ourish in rou-
tine and repetition rather than to remain what romanticism takes it to
be: an ecstatic deviation from the tenor of ordinary experience.
Th e distinguishing mark of the better form of community is that it
can withstand diff erence (of origin, experience, and perspective) and
even confl ict, and make commitments prevail over memories. Th e de-
cisive test of its success is deepening of reciprocal engagement in the
face of multiple forms of diff erence and the turning of confl ict into a
source of union.