A group defined by an outsider’s look cannot achieve true autonomy

Evidence

Only in the Critique, what seemed before relatively simple and straightforward has undergone an amplification of imposing proportions, a complication which may seem to make this concept as cumbersome as that of the rotation of Ptolemaic epicycles. For the basic problem we face when we come to the question of group dynamics is that of the possible autonomy of the group as a unit: if the experience of the we-object, of group participation and ontological solidarity with others, remains bound to the look of the third party or the outsider, then it is hard to see how the group could ever become an independent force in its own right, for it would always depend for its being on something outside itself. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 505

Categorization

• QUESTION: This is the problem the Critique’s theory of the fused group is meant to solve — worth chasing how Sartre escapes the third-party dependency and whether Jameson thinks he succeeds.
• XREF: connects to: Ascendant groups develop from subaltern to hegemonic status through acquiring autonomy and allies — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 419; Politicized identity converts a group from thing-in-itself to actor-for-itself

Broader Connections

• Ascendant groups develop from subaltern to hegemonic status through acquiring autonomy and allies #complicates (0.75) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 419
• Politicized identity converts a group from thing-in-itself to actor-for-itself #expands (0.72)