From any sensible practical or material standpoint there is no self, only the existence of the perception of the self.
However, this is more than just a disconcerting aphorism, it’s a direct condemnation of individual responsibility. It’s not to say we aren’t responsible for our axions, though in a lot of ways those axions are resultants from our settings of facticity, predetermined by stimuli, or imposed by systems, instead it’s to say an image of self was responsible, as through the state of modern Reinvention, perpetual self-poiesis¹, the constructed self responsible (likely) no longer exists. It, instead, was a momentary construction created in response to a set of specific stimuli, a mere image.
My fear is that this growing trend of quickly switching between selfs faster than ever before in history, will lead to a greater alienation from the idea of the true-self, the set of values, the worldview, the potential, the ultimate version one can become through Nietzsche’s der Wille zur Macht. Through fear of truly being intimate, through fear of being discovered as a fraud, through a societal insecurity to be authentic, through isolation from the world, we have constructed automaton versions of the self with the express purpose of self-destruxion--a quick discarding of a self in favour of further Reinvention. They, these images, are created through Reinvention for a particular scenario, then, when the time is over, they are rigged to explode.
This is, understandably, a deterrent. It’s a reaxion to an increasingly hostile world where the supposedly kinder and more accepting attitudes of the culture have instead fostered a heavily scrutinised understanding of uniqueness and authenticity alongside a push to further ideological isolation among a population that has succumb to Verfallen and learnt to ignore the opportunities afforded to them by consequence of being human. A culture where being a true-self would be indecent, impolite, uncivil, and any other number of highfalutin buzzwords.
In doing so, (as I have already said previously), the culture actively encourages a prolonged self-poiesis through constant Reinvention. This continuing process of fashioning new identities alienates individuals to the point of reaching a non-self, a state in which even all those shattered images which share glimmers of the supposed true-self in ideology or interest fail. When we arrive here, we become husks. We become pleasant, civil, “nice” (in the Latin sense of the word), currents of pure humanity with no delineation--and thus susceptible to manipulation or harmful ideology, pure uncorrupted Being. All our interests are superseded by the momentary requirements of pleasure. We can read tomorrow, today is for mindless television. We can care, become invested, rebel next week, today we must go shopping or meet an acquaintance we care very little about. The leader will lead. The herd will follow. This is optimal Verfallen.
The culture encourages this process of creating a non-self through Reinvention because it breeds a herd of reliable consumers. Those constantly engaged with the non-self, need not bother to think, nor to question, they need only consume, to live, to exist.
Heraclitus posited the existence of flux within all things, as day and night serve the same primeval funxions, not as intrinsic opposites, but as manifestations of the same state. I appropriate and argue now that the self is much the same. The true-self, that ultimate concept which we have strode towards and declared aphoristically to not exist, is instead a flux duality, a single entity in perpetual change between the images, shattered conceptions of the self, and the non-self, the loss of identity, the primitive, the fundamental, and the implicated stuff of Marxist alienation fostered through rapid lifelong self-poiesis.
In the Neu¹, the painfully postmodern, it is the job of the individual to find this true-self. To actively question, actively be engaged in the process of living every single moment, to actively be in the world. To reconcile the flux of the non-self with the varied automotos ready to destruct.
Instead of using this dynamite as a form of protexion, we should use it as a catalyst for self discovery, or as a tool or scaffolding. No longer should we warn others “we are lined with corbomite,” we should instead use the immolation of temporary selfs, the self-destruxion, to assess the aspects that reflect the true-self, and in doing so reach closer to the ideal.
But how can we possibly attempt such a feat? It seems impossible! After all, these images come and go every day, every hour, every minute. We are never the same image as we were before, and though we may share a bank of details, nothing is exact in its replica.
I find our best solution is to turn to Husserl. Through Bracketing. First, we must remove ourselves (at least momentarily) from our facticity--for it is the environment which justified the existence of these images in the first place. Next, we must overcome or become aware of the Natural Attitude. Whenever you perform an axion, whenever you have a thought, whenever you see a bird or hear a bell or enter a building, stop for a moment and think. Why do you interpret it the way you do? Understand the intrinsic bias to everything. You might look into the woods and think “it’s dangerous,” but that’s a base assumption. It may be a correct assumption, but you need to understand why. Is it because of bears? A natural fear? Or have you allowed the shared Natural Attitude of the world to tell you it’s a dangerous place (do not conflate this with the collective unconscious--which I haven’t time to touch on in this piece--for they are similar but not the same.)
The best way to identify the true-self is not through negation but rather summation, or for the more mathematically minded:
Sₜ ≈ S₀ + ∑ⁿᵢ₌₁ (Sₙ)
Where St is the true-self, equal to the empty non-self, the mold, the base added to the number of shattered image selfs, however many that may be, adding n to a possible near infinite constant.
Now, I have started with an assumption in all of this work, and that is that the idea of a “true-self” exists in the first place. If you remember, earlier I have said this is merely a conception, and that is true. The way we understand ourselves and understand individuality is fatally flawed--a necessary consequence of Neoliberalism and Liberalism at large. So, the attempt above is not a perfectly empirical approach to deconstructing the human soul, instead it’s a faulted approximation. In essence, the sum of your images, the varied collexions of the selfs created (poiéō) in separate facticities, approximates this conception of the “true-self”, as each image shares different attitudes and perspectives which can only be mirrors or derivations of the so-called self that birthed it. The true-self can be approximately understood through an analysis of everyone you’ve ever been as a means of assessing who you truly are, the Delphic maxim of “know thyself.”
There is one logical conclusion that follows from this. The way to know yourself deeper, to better approximate an understanding of the false but present true-self, is to reveal more images, for the more images, the more accurate the summation. And how does one reveal more images? Well, besides the later analysis needed to understand them and place them in the series, one goes out and experiences more.
We’ve established that images are created as a means to cope with, or in fact perhaps as a direct result, of engaging with new environments, necessary reaxions to stimuli. Your friend-self was created when you met your friends. Your current-work-self was created when you started this job. So, to have the most images to analyse, you must experience the most amount of situations. In simple terms, to know yourself the best, is to experience as much as possible. To know yourself the best is to know yourself in every situation.
If you have learnt Husserl’s method of Bracketing as a means of breaking down the biases of an individual image, then you should have no problem in understanding the component pieces of the true-self said image represents, and therefore understand yourself as a culmination, the end of your time-stream vector, pointing directly to the best understanding of “who” you are that there ever could be.
(I must take a moment to address the various supposedly apparent contradixions which I have established throughout this line of thinking, particularly the very notion of the true-self. Though it may, in many ways, be understood as the true concept of self and individuality parrot ubiquitously by modern popular culture, it is equally something more and ineffable, something deeply inscrutable and hardly insular--as we are no doubt insular beings, existent Daseins to which our experience, our Being, is our own. The true-self, that is the version that does (in a way)exist despite the flawed projexion presented by culture, the part that can be nearly reached or approximately understood through analytical summation of parts, is best understood alongside forcial aspects described by Nietzsche in his understanding of the Dionysian force within The Birth of Tragedy. For him, the foundation for human experience could be understood through a subtraxion of the individual, reaching closer to the earth, to the 道, through dance and mindless trance as a means of reducing the ascribed aspects of Gestell-ed ahumanity, the technological, modern, ascetic being which was constructed, assigned, and stands in opposition to the fundamentally human. These oppositions of constructed automatons are the very images I have outlined; they are construxions build from varying experiences, varying ascriptions throughout life which have created suitable characters in each condition. The difference in perspective comes from the approach. Nietzsche recommends a subtraxion of the self to arrive at innate being--to this I agree. However, I am not fully interested in the Dionysian innate, that, for me, is the non-self, the universal fabric essence from which each human soul--and perhaps animal spirit as well--is spun, it’s the mold, the collective, the glue of human personality; instead, I am interested in its culmination. Though not directly analogous, this can be explained with a parallel to Nietzsche as well, this time to the Übermensch. For Nietzsche, this is the end goal of der Wille zur Macht, to reach ultimate potential, to fully become yourself, Maslow’s sublime self-actualisation. I recommend the same: the summation of images, rather than Dionysian subtaxion, as a means of understanding, and potentially reaching the true-self.)
So. Where does this leave us? Though the popular conception of the “self” may not exist--that is as a static, singular, resolute, responsible, ideologically positioned, and independent entity, the “true-self”--there is at least a collexion of opinions and reaxions formed through prior experience, built up off the primordial mold, that can be understood as an approximation of that “true-self,” and this approximation must be understood before one can successfully understand and connect with others and the world in a meaningful, human way. The best way to do so is to understand each aspect of it that is formed in different situations, around different people, at different times. If you can understand every aspect of your varied selfs, through construxion and destruxion, you can essentially understand the roots these aspects spring from, and then can better understand others who must undergo the exact same process, alongside that beautiful “true-self” you’ve been hiding below your corbomite plating all along.
¹ Früh, D. E. “Character Creaxion: or the modern poiesis.” 29 October 2023. Essay
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