Forming the stable self costs self-inflicted coercion in every childhood

Evidence

Desire was also frowned upon: Men had to do fearful things to themselves before the self, the identical, purposive, and virile nature of man, was formed, and something of that recurs in every childhood. The strain of holding the I together adheres to the I in all stages; and the temptation to lose it has always been there with the blind determination to maintain it … The dread of losing the self and of abrogating together with the self the barrier between oneself and other life, the fear of death and destruction, is intimately associated with a promise of happiness which threatened civilization in every moment. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 358

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘I’ — identical, purposive, virile — as a fragile achievement continuously strained to be held together.
• XREF: Echoes Freudian ego formation and anticipates the Institute’s later work on authoritarian character and paternal authority. — connects to: The human organism’s default preferences produce self-damage — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2332; Coercion fails to produce lasting behavioral change; Human self-development is inseparable from transforming external social relations — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1285 (+3 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: The human organism’s default preferences produce self-damage — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2332; Coercion fails to produce lasting behavioral change; Human self-development is inseparable from transforming external social relations — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1285 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Coercion fails to produce lasting behavioral change #complicates (0.78)