Narcissism makes maternal and lesbian lovers equivalent in structure.

Evidence

Conditioning the very existence of the narcissist, mirroring also composes their primal demand: the reflection must be repeated. One selfie is never enough. An insistence on recognition is at the core, often distending into demands to be recognized in a particular way, and flattening the other as mirror, mere vehicle of reflection. This negation of the other perpetuates sameness: where there is no opacity or desire, there is no contradiction and no distinction, only replicating identity. It also flirts with psychosis, an overinvestment of libido in the self as object, repudiating representation, propounding paranoia; there is something of the psychotic’s experience in immediacy’s pendulating between unison and cacophony. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 90 (#expands, via linked claim)

There have been and there still are many women who do seek to attain individual salvation on their own. They try to justify their existence within their own immanence, that is, to achieve transcendence through immanence. It is this ultimate effort—sometimes ridiculous, often pathetic—of the imprisoned woman to convert her prison into a heaven of glory, her servitude into sovereign freedom, that we find in the narcissist, the woman in love, and the mystic. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1770 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Narcissism, romantic love, and mysticism are doomed attempts to transcend through immanence — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1770; Narcissism’s demand for repeated recognition flattens the other into sameness. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 90

Broader Connections

• Narcissism’s demand for repeated recognition flattens the other into sameness. #expands (0.80) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 90
• Narcissism, romantic love, and mysticism are doomed attempts to transcend through immanence #expands (0.72) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1770