ego’s resolve. The inherent “fixation on dissatisfaction” demanded by the superego “exposes the ego to the vicissitudes of public opinion” (Copjec, 45-6). Creon’s “failure of nerve toward the end of the play, his bending to public opinion” (Copjec, 45), illustrates this weakening effect of the superego’s law on the ego. Creon’s enfeebled and battered ego prevents him from carrying out the ethical autonomous action called for in the play’s final moments. This fixation not only attenuates Creon’s resolve, it “causes him to be relatively indifferent to all others available to him,” as “he remains glued to an ideal he will never attain” (Copjec, 45). Creon’s cold and unreceptive indifference results from his dependency on striving toward the ideal as demanded by the superego, whereas Antigone’s loving indifference and active receptivity enables autonomy. The stark contrast between Creon’s dependency and Antigone’s autonomy reveals how the law, as manifest in the superego, reigns over and debilitates the ego thus preventing the capacity for autonomy.
VVVICopjec’s reading of Antigone’s lawlessness and Young-Bruehl’s turn toward the vicissitudes of the ego instincts contribute to an account of autonomy as a strengthening of a receptive self. Young-Bruehl’s consideration of the ego shares with Copjec’s concept of autonomy a loving and receptive, yet still critical faculty. Both notions move away from the perception of autonomy as self-contained remoteness. Together, Copjec and Young-Bruehl’s notions of the ego contradict traditional masculinist understandings of autonomy as absolute self-contained sovereignty. Like Copjec, who contends that Antigone’s receptivity and love enable her autonomy, Young-Bruehl suggests that it is precisely through openness and receptivity that the self flourishes.
VVVIBoth Copjec and Young-Bruehl show how a version of the self is strengthened and afforded a degree of autonomy through receptivity and love. Their particular notions of independence stand in stark contrast to traditional understandings of autonomy as self-contained disconnectedness. Significantly however, both Copjec and Young-Bruehl’s version of autonomy and self-cultivation, respectively, retain a fundamental aspect of traditional notions of autonomy. Their accounts preserve and expand upon the notion that autonomy entails a critical capacity to disregard, reject, and resist potentially unethical and oppressive dictates of the community. The feminist psychoanalytic understanding of autonomy delineated here, actually amplifies this critical capacity by suggesting a notion of autonomy that can stand against and even dismantle the laws of the community internalised as the superego.
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