The man who desires a thing humanly acts not so much to possess the thing as to make another recognize his right … to that thing. 40
And Hegel says that the being that is incapable of putting its life in danger in order to attain ends that are not immediately vital —i.e. the being that cannot risk its life in a Fight for Recognition, in a fight for pure prestige —is not a truly human being. 41
Therefore, human, historical, self-conscious existence is possible only where there are, or —at least— where there have been, bloody fights, wars for prestige. And thus it was sounds of one of these Fights that Hegel heard while finishing his Phenomenology, in which he became conscious of himself by answering his question “What am I?” 41
The Master is the man who went all the way in a Fight for prestige, who risked his life in order to be recognized in his absolute superiority by another man. That is, to his real, natural biological life he preferred something ideal, spiritual, nonbiological: …45
It was to become Master, to be Master that he risked his life, and not to live a life of pleasure. Now, what he wanted by engaging in the fight was to be recognized by another — that is, by someone other than himself but who is like him, by another man. But in fact, at the end of the Fight, he is recognized only by a Slave. To be a man, he wanted to be recognized by another man. BUt if to be a man is to be Master, the Slave is not a man, and to be recognized by a Slave is not to be recognized by a man. He would have to be recognized by another Master. But his is impossible, since —by definition— the Master prefers death to slavish recognition of another’s superiority. In short, the Master never succeeds in realizing his end, the end for which he risks his very life. the Master can be satisfied only in and by death, his death or the death of his adversary. … Now, is it worthwhile to risk one’s life in order to know that one is recognized by a Slave? Obviously not. And that is why, to the extent that the Master is not made brutish by his pleasure and enjoyment, when he takes account of what his true end and the motive of his actions —i.e., his warlike actions— are, he will not, he will never be befriedigt, satisfied by what is, by what he is.
In other words, Master is an existential impasse. 46