Roman imperial tyranny forced the inward turn that birthed modern subjectivity.

Evidence

The principle of ‘spiritual inwardness’ could not arise in the Roman world except against a background of ethical and political chaos. It is the result of a new conception of citizenship, itself imposed by certain events (i.e. the tyranny of the emperors), and signalled the end of Greek political idealism, which had posited the substantial unity of state and individual within the ethical totality. Beginning in this epoch the individual experienced his relation to the state as something separable and discontinuous, finding only in himself the sanctuary and security of his autonomy. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1362

Categorization

• XREF: Fits the reader’s MOC thread: here an institutional arrangement (imperial tyranny) is what tips a social relation (citizenship) into a new mode, producing inwardness — the kind of causal mechanism the reader is hunting for with respect to enemy plasticity. — connects to: Descartes’ indubitable ‘I’ redirected philosophy inward toward certainty of the self.; Modern subjectivity emerged from Christianity’s principle of spiritual inwardness. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 615