The shock of self-transcendence is constitutive of any genuinely dialectical consciousness

Evidence

There is a breathlessness about this shift from the normal object-oriented activity of the mind to such dialectical self-consciousness—something of the sickening shudder we feel in an elevator’s fall or in the sudden dip in an airliner. That recalls us to our bodies much as this recalls us to our mental positions as thinkers and observers. The shock indeed is basic, and constitutive of the dialectic as such: without this transformational moment, without this initial conscious transcendence of an older, more naïve position, there can be no question of any genuinely dialectical coming to consciousness. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 635

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘shock’ as constitutive echoes Benjamin’s notion of dialectics-at-a-standstill and the jolt of historical awakening. — connects to: An initial shocking transcendence is constitutive of all dialectical thinking; Consciousness must lose itself in the absolute to attain self-consciousness — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 508; Self-consciousness is the sole mode of existence for any consciousness of something — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 135 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Consciousness must lose itself in the absolute to attain self-consciousness #corroborates (0.85) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 508
• For Adorno, dialectical thinking requires self-consciousness be inscribed in the sentence structure itself #expands (0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 115
• Dialectical thought is self-reflexive thinking about thinking, unlike scientific objectivity #expands (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 103
• Maximum self-consciousness only reveals thought’s irrecoverable unconsciousness #complicates (0.80)
• Consciousness is a duality that is unity, irreducible to the in-itself #expands (0.75)
• Self-consciousness is the sole mode of existence for any consciousness of something #expands (0.72) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 135