Socially prescribed conduct can serve as scaffolding for self-realization rather than constraint

Evidence

As I have described, the mosque participants did not regard authorized models ofbehavior as an extern social imposition that constrained the individual. Rather, they viewed socially prescribed forms of conduct as the potentialities, the “scaffolding,” if you will, through which the self is realized. — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 1027

Categorization

• DEFINE: The ‘scaffolding’ metaphor reframes social convention as enabling rather than constraining the self — a key conceptual move.
• XREF: Connects to Foucault’s productive power and Butler’s subject-formation; also to the standard liberal critique of religious submission vs. autonomy that this chapter problematizes. — connects to: Play releases subjectivity by letting the person posit their own rules — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1356; Administered needs cause individuals to identify with and submit to domination — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 39; Tech-idealized self-improvement lifestyles assume a solitary, unencumbered individual — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 453 (+3 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival…, 1027