Expanded Selves

without expanded egos

As my interest in some metamodern thinkers fades, my interest in others grows. Recently I have been listening to Indy Johar in conversation with Sarah Wilson. Now I would like to riff on his article, The Collapse of Self.

The central argument is not simply that the self is collapsing. It is that the collapse of self has become structurally useful. A diminished self is easier to govern, easier to extract from, easier to instruct, easier to divide, and easier to set against others. The crisis is therefore not only psychological or cultural. It is political, economic, and existential.

Donald Trump has at least 12 billionaires in his Cabinet. These are people with big accomplishments. But in Trump’s presence and in their role in his Administration they seem small, greatly diminished selves.

2. The Self Is Not Private; It Is Produced

The self is often imagined as something private, internal, and individual. But a self is not simply born whole inside a person. A self is produced through conditions. It is formed through time, place, relation, security, memory, recognition, and shared life.

Adding my own words, the Self is a complex system, a process always emerging in a unique context.

3. The Desired Collapse

To say the collapse of self is “desired” does not require imagining a single conspiracy or a hidden author of the whole process. The point is more structural than that. The collapsed self is useful to existing systems. It serves economic, political, technological, and cultural arrangements that benefit from people being insecure, fragmented, reactive, and dependent.

It seems to me that 2015 was a turning point with the rise of Trump and the march towards Brexit. Since that time, society in general, and people in my personal circle of friends and family, seem to be shrinking. People who have not collapsed in the way Johar describes stand out. People with a strong sense of Self and Purpose are not controlled. Charlie Angus, leader of the Canadian Resistance, is one such person.

7. Relational Collapse

Perhaps the deepest fracture is relational. The self is increasingly validated not through relation, but through separation. Recognition is replaced by visibility. Belonging is replaced by legibility. Personhood is replaced by performance. Relation is replaced by opinion.

For much of my life I tried to validate myself with my opinions but I am now learning a better way, replacing opinion with relationship.

8. Othering and the Moral Collapse of the Self

Othering is the moral engine of this collapse. Othering is not simply disagreement or difference.It is the conversion of difference into moral distance. It is the process by which another person becomes less real, less grievable, less owed, and less included in the circle of obligation.

Yes, culture wars continue to rage.

13. Expanding the Self

To expand the self is not to inflate the ego. It is not self-optimisation, personal branding, or individual transcendence. It is the widening of the field of relation and responsibility... To expand the self is to restore the conditions under which collective life can be chosen without heroism.

I love the phrase, expanding the Self in a healthy way.

The task is therefore not simply to solve the game from within its existing rules. The task is to transform the kind of self that enters the game. We must actively reimagine and rebuild the conditions that allow for an expanded self: a self rooted in time, place, relation, security, obligation, and shared futurity.

And we must become expanded selves in community, in islands of coherence, islands of sanity, in small groups with trusted others.