But why?
Here is an interesting idea that equivocate Nietzche, Frankenstein(Mary Shelley) & Lacan.
"This thesis examines the Narcissus theme and narcissism in the literature of the
nineteenth century, focusing on the theme as it is reflected in Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein and Nietzsche’s Zur Genealogie der Moral, especially the dramatic shift in
perspective towards narcissism reflected in these two works. Historical and cultural
changes over the course of the nineteenth century that may have led to this reversal are
discussed, and it is suggested that the earlier negative view of narcissism is bound with a
theological concept of the “self” that is no longer compatible with the understanding of
humanity’s radically animal nature. A positive view of narcissism in Nietzsche’s writing
may reflect a vacuum in the traditional understanding of the “self” that demands “self-
creation.” Narcissistic expression may also represent a liberation from the superstitious
awe surrounding the former, more theological concept of the “self” and from the moral
constraints of the theology from which this derived. Analysis of the Narcissus theme,
beginning with Ovid’s version of the tale in the Metamorphoses then moving into the
nineteenth-century works, reveals common strands in all the depictions of narcissism
discussed. The analysis concludes that while Nietzsche assumes a positive stance
towards a narcissistic pose, the self-idealization reflected in his work is as illusory as the
negatively reflected narcissism of the earlier versions, and that below the surface of
Nietzsche’s jubilant tone the philosophical voice of his work seems as haunted by the
idealized self-image he has created as the hero of Shelley’s novel "
I will preference this citation later, but here is the sub stance of the underlying illusion, as I got to see and understand it:
Narcissus did not know, the reflection, the mirroring as thought, he only understood an image as inside it, below the level of the image, within the image somehow an internalized, sourced effort to build an objective criteria for reality
Reflection. as commonly understood as thought was not merely an image qua illusion but became some thing, as someone other.
It was not mirrored as thought, but illusion. Refelection did not =thought at that time, it was below, and above his awareness.
Further, him being an object of self love without knowing it was, indicated the hidden homosexuality in primal narcissism, a stage every boy goes through in that self image. Self concept constructs that new form of knowledge in various constructs and stages within the images of self.
The reflection as image becomes
in Ovid, for instance.
This really is pure Freud.
But the structural workings out are more involved, and it would be fun to delve into it , even coming to grips within far broader contexts, as in relational linking to the supposed personality disorder gaping now in Trumpism, where social discourse has already colluded it with the personal childish politocal-psychological underpinnings.
Szasz in a way legitimized the notion of the idea that in am ok-you’re ok type of preception, the question relating to control and determinative.elements, as it is beginning linkages that have resulted in this emperor wears no clothes analogy to the allegory.
What does it take for narcissism to break it’s own illusion of literal objectivity? It is the cave, the cave, the primal cave of the first Lacian mirror’s defensive gesture, to acknowledge that below that, there is only the beyond, the beyond between distinguishing any form of division between the good and the bad, & without the automatic generation of an ugly , self possession, a possession so intricately meshed, so as to understand possession of the self by one that can no longer be excorcised.
That is what the Faustian riddle represents, which even the Evil can not defeat.
It is a self trickery, that one understands, that gives absolute guarantee against that universal power, no ONE can defeat. No one!
The modus operandi is the joke, the Joker, the clown, and the fool. It literally glares out of The Possessed, that shook the Russian Empire to it’s foundations, the slaves revolt.
That is, what undermines the dejure symptoms of the lack of foundations, de facto; abracadabra, …
The crime that not only goes unnoticed, but remains as viable as it was before the curative that presupposes Decartes through Hegel and Kant, through Engels and Marx.
Little do they know of the black soul of serfs, and the 100 year war fought for it.