No longer wanting to be everything. This is human integrity– the hatred of salvation.
(Bataille paraphrased)
I wonder if this is what I opted for when I renounced what I thought to have been my “westernisation” in favour of my African roots — (actually, in truth, probably just in favour of my childhood innocence of perspective).
It seems to me that the desire to “be everything” is what makes people poisonous, unteachable. You are in the process of teaching them and they already want to BE you, and they are asserting arrogantly that you are not to consider yourself better than them, and that they need no knowledge for they already have all the knowledge there is, and your teaching them is diminishing them in their own eyes (making them seem like they are less than “everything”.)
Now I understand why everything in the contemporary world seems as if it is floating — identities always in suspension. It is because people are trying to work out their own individual salvations, defined as “not what I am, but what I deserve to be.” In other words, “I deserve to be saved from the pressure of material reality by becoming ‘everything’ (ie.disembodied spirit), which is my true essence anyway”. But this is really a very negative attitude (although it seems like the exact opposite), since, if everyone is doing this “everything”, then this produces people in narcissistic bubbles (and, logically, it produces solipsism), because nobody is treated as if their identities were material and in the present. (This abstraction from the present justifies treating others as means to and end, and social darwinism which ignores the immorality of hurting real, material people.)
By seeing yourself as ‘everything’ -(even if this is framed aspirationally, as “potentially”)- you negate the other person’s current existence. So, this desire to be everything produces, actually, the negation of everything. People culturally learn to dissociate from anything which is not already part of themselves emotionally and intellectually.
On the other hand, to deny that one is “everything”, and to accept not being everything, allows you to acknowledge another person’s presence, even through they may be very different from you. This seems to be the much more spiritual approach, underlying Bataille’s concept of immanence.
Now I understand why everything in the contemporary world seems as if it is floating — identities always in suspension. It is because people are trying to work out their own individual salvations, defined as “not what I am, but what I deserve to be.” In other words, “I deserve to be saved from the pressure of material reality by becoming ‘everything’ (ie.disembodied spirit), which is my true essence anyway”. But this is really a very negative attitude (although it seems like the exact opposite), since, if everyone is doing this “everything”, then this produces people narcissistic bubbles (and, logically, it produces solipsism), because nobody is treated as if their intentities were material and in the present. (This abstraction from the present justifies treating others as means to and end and social darwinism which ignores the immorality of hurting real people.) By seeing yourself as ‘everything’ -(een if this is framed aspirationally, as “potentially”)- you negate the other person’s current existence. So, this desire to be everything produces, actually the negation of everything. People learn to habitually disrelate to anything which is not already part of themselves emotionally and intellectually. On the other hand, to deny that one is “everything” and to accept not being everything allows you to acknowledge another person’s presence, even through they may be very different from you. This seems to be the much more spiritual approach, underlying Bataille’s concept of immanence.
it may, as usual, depend on how we are defining many words in your text. at moments this post feels like an insightful rewording of the poison of ego and lack of humility in the aspirant. and at other times it feels like a terribly cynical view on a person’s desire to expand themselves. this may also depend on your mind images when you write this…they may differ from mine in places, i’m sure they do. ultimately, i agree that nothing ends learning quicker than the ideas that one must avoid humility or vulnerabilty or that one has already arrived at point B without ever admitting they were first at piont A.
Ah– Bataille acknowledged our need to expand ourselves actually. This is part of human nature. At the same time there are problems with each swing of the psychological pendulum towards self expansion ideals, or towards a retreat from those ideals. I think that the construct I represented sounds cynical not because it is cynical actually, but because the views on expansion are negative right where we are culturally conditioned to expect unmitigated good.
Ah– Bataille acknowledged our need to expand ourselves actually. This is part of human nature. At the same time there are problems with each swing of the psychological pendulum towards self expansion ideals, or towards a retreat from those ideals. I think that the construct I represented sounds cynical not because it is cynical actually, but because the views on expansion are negative right where we are culturally conditioned to expect unmitigated good.