Narcissistic self-repetition is socially forced, not a voluntary avoidance of closure.
Evidence
Sennett maintains that the narcissistic individual intentionally avoids achieving goals: closure yields an objectifiable form, which, inasmuch as it possesses independent substance, weakens the self. In fact, precisely the opposite holds. The socially conditioned impossibility of objectively valid, definitive forms of closure drives the subject into narcissistic self-repetition; consequently, it fails to achieve gestalt, stable self-image, or character. Thus, it is not a matter of intentionally “avoiding” the achievement of goals in order to heighten the feeling of self. Instead, the feeling of having achieved a goal never occurs. It is not that the narcissistic subject does not want to achieve closure. Rather, it is incapable of getting there. It loses itself and scatters itself into the open. The absence of forms of closure depends, not least of all, on economic factors: openness and inconclusiveness favor growth. — Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, 105
Categorization
- XREF: Directly reverses Sennett; the economic reading (openness and inconclusiveness favor growth) ties narcissism to the production system rather than individual psychology. — connects to: Narcissus is punished by Nemesis for refusing others’ desire, not by Echo. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 1489