The Self as Object
by Jacqueline Winter Thomas
By dint of recognizing a little more clearly the supra-individual function of language, we can distinguish in reality the new developments which are actualized by language. Language has, if you care to put it like that, a sort of retrospective effect in determining what is ultimately decided to be real. Now the structure of language gives us a clue to the function of the ego. The ego can either be the subject of the verb or qualify it. There are two kinds of language: in one of them one says “I am beating the dog” and in another “There is a beating of the dog by me”. But, be it noted, the person who speaks, whether he appears in the sentence as the subject of the verb or as qualifying it, in either case asserts himself as an object involved in a relationship of some sort, whether one is feeling or doing. Does what is expressed in such statements of the ego give us a picture of the relationship of the subject to reality? (12).
An ‘active’ or ‘passive’ ego would certainly, among other things, speak to particular social bonds and underscore the particulars of varying ‘realities.’ An excellent share!