God's Names: Our Responsibilities 4

The role is a consumption of power - it locates [or places] one in the representational hierarchy, and hence in the spectacle: at the top, at the bottom, in the middle, but never outside the hierarchy, whether this side of it or beyond it - the role is thus the means of access to the mechanism of [a chosen, or forced] culture: a form of initiation; it is also the medium of exchange of individual sacrifice, and in this sense performs a compensatory function [to the power]; and lastly, as a residue of separation, it strives to construct a behavioral unity; in this aspect it depends on identification - the series of poses chosen more or less unconsciously from the range of dominant stereotypes [the stereotype is the model of the role, the role is a model form of behavior; the repetition of an attitude creates a role, the repetition of a role creates a stereotype; the stereotype is an objective form into which people are integrated by means of the role; skill in playing and handling roles determines rank in the hierarchy] - why do we succumb to the seduction of borrowed attitudes?