Consciousness without an external object pines away and grows bored

Evidence

But for Bloch, for whom, in both a phenomenological and an emotional sense, consciousness pines away without an object, this ultimate suppression of the object-pole is constitutionally distasteful; and the lived source of Bloch’s materialism may be found in this conviction of the boredom of consciousness left to its own devices, of the necessity of an object which justifies, not labor in the sense of the work of the fallen world, but rather activity of a higher, nonalienated, Goethean nature, in a Utopian external world now reconciled with the self, but not for all that swallowed up inside it. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 273

Categorization

• XREF: Bloch’s rejection of Hegel’s absorption of object into subject reads as a direct extension of the Adorno critique of that same absorption — a clear Frankfurt-lineage payoff. — connects to: The concept of alienation functions as criticism without requiring a Utopian counterpart — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 343; Consciousness has no content because it is always directed outward at objects — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 129; Total sensory absence can feel generative rather than merely frightening — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels: The Quest for Absolute…, 496 (+2 more)
• DEFINE: Defines the key distinction between Bloch’s Goethean materialism and Hegel’s idealism — the source of Bloch’s materialism as anti-idealist.

Broader Connections

• Prolonged attention transforms what initially seems boring #complicates (0.85)
• Consciousness has no content because it is always directed outward at objects #expands (0.82) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 129
• Total sensory absence can feel generative rather than merely frightening #complicates (0.75) — George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels, 496
• A perfected sensory object can reorder a dulled inner life #qualifies (0.72) — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 1068