The unified self is a fragile construction sustained against the lure of dissolution.
Evidence
The strain of holding the I together adheres to the I in all stages; and the temptation to lose it has always been there with the blind determination to maintain it. The narcotic intoxication which permits the atonement of deathlike sleep for the euphoria in which the self is suspended, is one of the oldest social arrangements which mediate between self-preservation and self-destruction—an attempt of the self to survive itself. The dread of losing the self and of abrogating together with the self the barrier between oneself and other life, the fear of death and destruction, is intimately associated with a promise of happiness which threatened civilization in every moment. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 48
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: The claim that the very dread of losing the self is ‘intimately associated with a promise of happiness’ is a dense, inverting paradox worth sitting with.
- XREF: connects to: Without destruction of prior form, identity cannot sustain itself. — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 245; Absolute freedom makes one’s every choice perpetually fragile and invertible; Resilience means forming oneself out of the annihilation of form — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 251 (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Without destruction of prior form, identity cannot sustain itself.
#expands(0.85) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 245 - The self forms only through engagement with that which denies its unity
#expands(0.84) - Totalization seeks fragile control of a fragile subject in an indifferent world
#corroborates(0.82) - Resilience means forming oneself out of the annihilation of form
#corroborates(0.80) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 251 - Absolute freedom makes one’s every choice perpetually fragile and invertible
#expands(0.78) - The inescapable residue of failure is the very condition of living freedom
#expands(0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 145 - Collective meaning-making is the antidote to shock and exploitation.
#contradicts(0.72) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 21