radical solitude
Please reference as: Maria Tamboukou (2018) 'Radical solitude', https://sites.google.com/view/revisiting-the-nomadic-subject/archives/concepts/non-philosophy/radical-solitude
‘Grief is a state of being exposed in one’s constitutive dependence’ Katerina Kolozova notes in a fine summary of Judith Butler’s late work on the political significance of grief. (Cut of the Real, 49) But while agreeing with Butler about the political force of grief, Kolozova argues that
grief is also, an instance of ‘radical solitude’ par excellence, encompassing ‘the hard labour of self-preservation performed by the ‘I’ in the face of the dread of its possible annihilation (CR, 49).
grief is also, an instance of ‘radical solitude’ par excellence, encompassing ‘the hard labour of self-preservation performed by the ‘I’ in the face of the dread of its possible annihilation (CR, 49).
No matter how mobile or transient the self is, it works hard on preserving its continuity, on going on living; and this hard labour, the force of the Spinozist conatus, creates a state that is for Kolozova, ‘an irrevocably solitary one’ (50).