‘Me and my Shadow’ Reinterpreted Cover Image

‘Me and my Shadow’ Reinterpreted
‘Me and my Shadow’ Reinterpreted

Author(s): Eric Gilder, Mervyn Hagger
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti
Keywords: Individualism; collectivism; reality; human life; illusion; “God” conceptions; bio-power

Summary/Abstract: Because no human being ever chose to be born, every human being is dependent upon at least one other human being, after the moment of conception until they reach a non-specifiable age of individual survivability. But that phase may not last until it collides with the involuntary boundary line called death. Individualism is therefore (at best) a fleeting possibility to be acquired during a non-impaired period of human life, and its construct thus voids any legitimate claim to it as a “natural” birthright. Most accurately, individualism may be explained in terms of “penumbras” and “emanations” once employed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in writing the 1965 majority Opinion for Griswold v. Connecticut, (381 U.S. 479). Its 1973 maternal companion in Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113) presents a conundrum to dissenters, because their opposition requires atheists to concur that only a “god” has the power to give and take life. Clearly, the planned and unplanned fruits of conception belie a deistic source of life-giving power - while converse biological foes; planetary instability; national Armed Forces; terrorist warriors and self-motivated killers belie supernatural means as causation for the termination of human life. However, self-sustaining sectors within humanity continue to strive towards the idealism of individualism, which in reality only an immortal and almighty entity could possess bio-power, in Foucault’s terminology, thus has both a natural and supra-natural source.

  • Issue Year: II/2012
  • Issue No: 02
  • Page Range: 20-28
  • Page Count: 9
  • Language: English