Claiming to merge with another is itself an arrogance of master consciousness

Evidence

There is an arrogance in failing to respect boundaries and to acknowledge difference which can amount to an imposition of self. Deep ecologists see themselves as ‘empowered to act on behalf of other beings’ by claims of merging (Macy 1989:210). One may in certain situations claim without arrogance to act in solidarity with or on behalf of another through one’s own (always imperfect) understanding of that other’s situation, but one may not without arrogance assume that one is that other or knows that situation as does the other, that the other is transparent and encompassable by self without residue. Acknowledging the other’s boundary and opacity of being is part of respect for the other. It is the master consciousness which presumes to violate boundaries and claims to subsume, penetrate and exhaust the other, and such treatment is a standard part of subordination; for example, of women, servants, the colonised, animals. — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 672

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Supports article 1 on trees as infrastructure/living root bridges by framing who may claim to speak or act for land and nonhumans without the colonising ‘I am that’ gesture.
• XREF: Direct link to settler-colonial critique thread: speaking-for/merging-with land parallels the colonising self; connects to Home Boy/reluctant-fundamentalist themes of voice only if non-adjacent. — connects to: Instrumentalism treats the other as mere means without any limiting agency — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 522; Metaphysical unity with nature justifies exploitation no less than conservation — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 671; The ideal of loving unity with the Other is structurally unrealizable and breeds conflict — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 941 (+4 more)
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source

Broader Connections

• Expanding the self to include others still denies their distinctness #corroborates (0.82) — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 681
• The ideal of loving unity with the Other is structurally unrealizable and breeds conflict #corroborates (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 941
• Attempting to appropriate the Other destroys the incarnational freedom desire sought #corroborates (0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 989
• Every attitude toward the Other fails and collapses into its opposite #expands (0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1006
• The ego boundary is a false hallucination whose dissolution brings relief #qualifies (0.72) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 478