Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 11:09:09 -0800 (PST)
Subject: HAB: Being Myself ["l.e.", paragraph 74)


FROM DESTINING NATALITY THROUGH AUTHORIAL HISTORICITY (74-79)
["Lineral Eugenics," section V, latter 6 paragraphs]

[I've decided to post comment paragraph-by-paragraph, keeping to
shorter postings It looks like I'm going to cover nearly every
paragraph of the remainder of the essay, spread over the next week]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Part I of 6: BEING MYSELF EMBODIEDLY (74)

The remainder of section V more or less expands your sense of
existential understanding from earlier in the section, prior to your
detour recollecting abstract moralism (which could have been a
grounding of jurisprudential thinking in an anthropologically
deepened self-understanding of ethical life, but was not). Now, the
individuational character of ontogeny seems to have disappeared in
the distinction (76-77) between nature and socialization, as if the
gift to the gifted was a de-individuation of her nature, as if the
gift erased ontogeny altogether. 

I've shown, earlier, that it is indeed "the person herself who is
behind her intentions" (74). But there's no obligation to *basically*
see "myself" as an instantiation of abstract recognitions. You would
address her inasmuch as "we see ourselves..." (74), but this
sociocentric stance occludes the "who...behind...intentions," since
self-understanding (or identity) is rooted in the individuation of
life history that generally subordinates public interpersonality to
the holism of private self-understanding. 

Nonetheless, "If we see ourselves as moral persons, we intuitively
assume that since we are inexchangeable, we act and judge in propria
persona" (74). But this pertains to public life, not the
life-centered basis of an intersubjectivity in ethical life
(pertinent to the claims you'll be making about what she faces). In
understanding an other's *self-understanding*, we must appreciate its
basis in the lifeworld, which is largely private, rather than
assimilate self-identity to social life: "...in propria persona -
that it is," you say, "our own voice speaking." But what voice is
this "our"? Just the *genuineness* of SHARED self-representation in
public space, disregarding the individuated character of embodied
owning, which is idealized wholly within embodied self-understanding
as hopefully authentic, rooted in intersubjectivities, and indeed
largely oriented to one's own life projects. "...."being oneself"..."
is not what self-understanding seeks (not seeking social personhood
in general); rather being "myself", which is understood intimately
and kindredly. 
So, the issue of whether "the "intention of another person"
intrud[es] upon our life history through the genetic program [that]
might primarily turn out to be disruptive" is confounded by posing
the question relative to social construal (as if the issue is
primarily conceiveable relative to juridical prosecution and
defense). 

I've shown earlier that the basic issues are occluded by such
statements as "The capacity of being oneself requires that the person
be at home, so to speak, in her own body" (74) True as this is, so to
speak, this isn't the primary situation that being "myself" faces.
Considering "the body is the medium" is already an alienated (and
alienating) attitude toward self-understanding. 

Suppression of the embodied individuational character of
self-understanding would presume to give credibility to upcoming
claims about "beginning" and "natality" that are missing the
character of self-understanding that, so to speak, contemplates her
navel.


Next: BEING AN ORIGIN BORN FROM A BEGINNING [75] (Part 2 of DESTINING NATALITY...)

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