Repost

My level of diligence in trying to understand some things has always been extreme and this could never be understated, but it has been very difficult for me because the configuration of my own psyche has not been in accordance with the patterns described in much of the material I have been reading (for instance during my PhD).

Books address common phenomena, but usually within a cultural and historical context.  When it is not explicitly noted that there is a particular cultural and historical context to the writing, or what that context is, is can seem as if the book is addressing everybody, in the sense of giving a very broad map of the human soul, when in fact its notions are far more specific and limited than that. 

In my experience, anyway, much of psychoanalytical thinking seems to provide a backwards map.  I mean it has many of the features of my own psyche labeled in reverse, with some additions made and much of what I have in me missing from the map’s representation.

For instance, take the phenomenon of core narcissism.  This is equated with an notion of a core, irrational self, which is also very self-interested or self-absorbed and – because it is irrational in its nature – prone to outbursts or assertions that have no objective meaning or value.  This is what psychoanalysts refer to when they refer to the internal structure of the psyche. 

Logically, if one thinks of the most core part of the self in these terms, it makes sense to assert that by accommodating oneself to society’s demands, one gains rationality, real power and benefits – all the things one ought to want from life, which are not available so long as one is under the sway of the dominance of the core self.

Now that I have articulated it in this way, it makes sense.  It is amazing how long it has taken for me to grasp a simple concept.  That is NOT because I lack intelligence by any means, but because I could not help having my own SELF as a looming reference point, which meant that I was working with a sense of two maps, each having very different coordinates.

As I have said before, it seems to me that I am closer to being a Gas Giant, with some hardened external features.   I do not have a molten core – which is not to say that after a very great length of time I cannot be provoked!

When people may suggest, “Oh, you shouldn’t have tried many things, because that only reveals your core narcissism (i.e. your unsightly larval core trying to extrude itself),” I’ve never understood how that could possibly be.  To try or not try many things doesn’t seem to make any difference to a Gas Giant.  One tries this or that, and if it doesn’t work out, one reforms oneself.  What would be of benefit (at one time) would be to break some of one’s rigid features on the outside.  But there was never any core narcissism, just a core diffused state of being. 

To speak as if daring too hard in terms of diversity of experience, or daring too hard in terms of intensity of experience was innately wrong-headed leads to confusion and misunderstanding.  (Even in the case of larval personalities, that would be, I think, generally a wrong-headed form of moral criticism.)

These assumptions regarding character structure seem too narrow and too inappropriately  moralistic. 

But there is another avenue, too, of misunderstanding.   That is in terms of the capacity to feel guilt.  I believe it is what separates the modern character from the more old-fashioned type, definitively.

The modern type does not feel social guilt or responsibility.  They may and almost certainly do feel individual guilt and responsibility, which can lead to an even greater refinement of character and oversensitivity in some ways, but they do not tend to feel any social guilt, as if something they could have done might affect the whole social group for the worse.  That kind of thing would be very unusual.

The modern type thinks narrowly and must be gradually induced to participate in a broader reality through gentle coaxing – designed to draw them out of themselves. 

By contrast, the one who thinks almost entirely in terms of social guilt and responsibility does not have need of any such coaxing.  Imagine saying, “Well try to have a social conscience about you!  You are too narcissistic!” to such a person whose real problem is that they are overwhelmed by social  conscience to the point that they are stuck in a petrified condition in relation to what seem to be very fixed and overwhelming Truths.   (If you are really crazy, you can further tell them that any act they may decide to perform is an act of narcissism, because they are trying too many things.)

Bataille speaks to people in the second category of being, but not those who are already very much at ease with themselves and with asserting their wants and needs in the world.

Of course the first type of person just thinks Bataille is encouraging people to act out, to go the wrong way and to become irrational in many regards, but that is because what this kind of person who criticizes thus has the greater need for is a gentle coaxing in the opposite direction – away from the core self and toward the greater good.  But there are some who still haven’t discovered their core selves yet, and for whom such misdirection could be disastrous, even deadly.

The people who need Bataille the most are the old-fashioned types of personality who can still experience social guilt, but perhaps experience it overwhelmingly, and need some method to break down some parts of their encrusted shell. 

There are different sages for different types of people and for different needs, but nothing guarantees their adherents will not misunderstand each other, especially when their psyches have to be mapped differently.