I agree.What is other “within ourselves†is reason to project our faults onto others “outside ourselves.†“Self†respect includes otherness since without it what “self†and “other†can there be?
By realizing the separation between self and other, the merger of self and other (Enlightenment) is less perilous to the Ego. The narcissist wants to dominate "other," continually merging his malignant "self-love" with it : As a result, his "self," almost continually produces anxiety.Your and bert’s regularly advocated idea of “getting in touch with/returning to the unconscious/ness,†“merging with the universe,†“cosmic consciousness†is, then, an ideation of the death drive (that drive motivated by a return to the state of total self-satisfaction) when it causes pain/fear and an ideation of the pleasure principle when it causes happiness. The “guiding light†in Freud’s rational man (healthy Ego) appears to ultimately be, do his actions conflict with others (and the real [objective] world) and thus jeopardise the individual‘s survival, causing anxiety?
Could you elaborate on the primitive drives . . .Is enlightenment a matter of negotiating primitive drives with morality?
Ideally this is the case.Is it “returning†to a state of complete self-satisfaction where self and other merge into oneness (there can only be a going back -- after language -- through a will to unconsciousness or a never having come out of the state in the first place, of course)?
It is a will to consciousness, however: a union of the unconscious and conscious to form a superconsciousness.