The self’s seeming uniqueness is a mass-produced commodity falsely posed as natural

Evidence

The defiant reserve or elegant appearance of the individual on show is mass-produced like Yale locks, whose only difference can be measured in fractions of millimeters. The peculiarity of the self is a monopoly commodity determined by society; it is falsely represented as natural. It is no more than the moustache, the French accent, the deep voice of the woman of the world, the Lubitsch touch: finger prints on identity cards which are otherwise exactly the same, and into which the lives and faces of every single person are transformed by the power of the generality. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 117

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The unique person is an absolute totality not reducible to any empirical desire; Individuality itself is an illusion produced by the law of value — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 932; The image of uninhibited vitality itself recycles commodity fetishism (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Individuality itself is an illusion produced by the law of value #corroborates (0.90) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 932
• False identity means apparent individuality itself is the manufactured illusion #corroborates (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 24
• Market-driven exaggeration of eccentricity makes the individual complicit in his own commodification. #expands (0.85)
• The image of uninhibited vitality itself recycles commodity fetishism #expands (0.80)
• Showing oneself as a self online begins the manufacturing of the self as commodity #exemplifies (0.80) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 61
• Capitalism’s naturalness and eternity are a hoax #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 26
• The question is what produces individuality, not how society acts on individuals #responds-to (0.75) — Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 137
• Car intimacy isolates one to produce the self as commodity #exemplifies (0.75) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 181