Digital Mind 🧠

🪵 The Threshold

Destruction appropriates objects more keenly than creation does.

Properties2
tagsja-picks, define, bmf, definitional_content, trade, singleton, xref, category/definitional-content
aliases@sartre_being_1943, loc. 1376

2 min read

Destruction appropriates objects more keenly than creation does.

Evidence

This is precisely why the recognition that it is impossible to possess an object involves for the for-itself a violent urge to destroy it. To destroy is to reabsorb into myself; it is to enter along with the being-in-itself of the destroyed object into a relation as profound as that of creation. The flames which burn the farm which I myself have set on fire, gradually effect the fusion of the farm with myself. In annihilating it I am changing it into myself. Suddenly I rediscover the relation of being found in creation, but in reverse; I am the foundation of the barn which is burning; I am this barn since I am destroying its being. Destruction realizes appropriation perhaps more keenly than creation does, for the object destroyed is no longer there to show itself impenetrable. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1376

Categorization

  • DEFINE: Establishes destruction as a primary mode of appropriation, completing the taxonomy of possessive behaviors.
  • BMF: The burning-barn passages where the arsonist becomes ‘foundation’ of the object recall A Very Minor Prophet’s treatment of how possession and ruin entwine in a life of small defilements and reclamations.
  • XREF: connects to: Having done something protects against the worst arbitrary destruction — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1008; Substance’s actuosity is simultaneously creative and destructive power — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1102; To be acted upon can mean destruction or conservation — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 446

Broader Connections

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