Roman-world rupture produced a modern individuality no human form can express

Evidence

Christ is thus the figure of a pure event, the exact opposite of the habitual. To this extent, its artistic representation cannot fit that required by the classical ideal. For the ‘representation of the absolute Idea’, ‘the forms of classical beauty will not suffice’, Hegel writes in the Aesthetics. The birth of modernity as registered in a self-regarding interiority, an individuality ruptured and self-absorbed, atomized and strange even to itself: these phenomena demand a form of art other than sculpture. ‘Plastic individuality’ presents to the world the perfect translation of the interior into the exterior and vice versa; its serenity arises from the individual’s harmony with the objective conditions of the world. But within the Roman world, disharmony and rupture led to a different and modern conception of individuality, an individuality that tore itself away from a world grown ineffectual through brutality, that discovered its freedom wholly within itself, dependent only on the power of thought and the infinite value of the ego. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 841

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines what is meant by the shift from ‘plastic individuality’ (harmony of interior and exterior) to modern self-absorbed individuality — a conceptual contrast key to plasticity theory.
• XREF: Cross-references the sacred/profane reading purpose: the rupture here prefigures how a non-plastic modern subject becomes the problem plasticity must explain. — connects to: Modern individuality arises from rupture with the world, not harmony with it — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 841; Pre-modern societies underwent change without experiencing it as accelerated rupture — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 409; Modernity represents a genuine rupture from pre-sixteenth-century European paradigms despite internal variation — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 538 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Modern individuality arises from rupture with the world, not harmony with it #corroborates (0.95) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 841
• Modern individuality replaces plastic serenity with self-absorbed rupture #corroborates (0.90)
• Plasticity inverts the Greek form-creation into the becoming-accidental of essence #expands (0.85) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 859
• Modernity represents a genuine rupture from pre-sixteenth-century European paradigms despite internal variation #corroborates (0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 538
• Pre-modern societies underwent change without experiencing it as accelerated rupture #qualifies (0.75) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 409
• The destructive forces of the century produced the world’s unity and modern human strength #complicates (0.70) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 12