But we can also internalize objective diagrams by accepting the indexical roles and relationships of that foreign diagram as our own. We initially like to pretend we take on the roles and play at the relationships while we maintain our own subjectivity. But we can also — and being really good at a game demands that we — choose one of these objective systems, qualify for admission to it, internalize it completely, and make it our one and only. That foreign diagram becomes us; the captain is the ship. I would refer to this as a "living death," as a loss of one's soul. However, the many, many who have done this, both materially and spiritually, are decisively animated about the virtues of it. They refer to it as a new life, as being "born again."
Marcuse writing on Lewis Mumford:
ReplyDelete"Lewis Mumford has characterized man in the machine age as an "objective personality," one who has learned to transfer all subjective spontaneity to the machinery which he serves, to subordinate his life to the "matter-of-factness" of a world in which the machine is the factor and he the factum. [Marcuse, ""Some Social Implications of Modern Technology"]