“Self-criticism [is] clearly only the refusal of criticism by the other, a way to be self-sufficient while reserving for oneself the right to insufficiency, a self-abasement that is a self-heightening."

Blanchot - The Unavowable Community

Blanchot - The Unavowable Community (extract)

I repeat, for Bataille, the question: Why "community"? The answer he gives us is rather clear: "There exists a principle of insufficiency at the root of each being..." (the principle of incompleteness). Let us take note that what commands and organizes the possibility of a being is a principle. It follows that this lack on principle does not go hand in hand with a necessity for completion. A being, insufficient as it is, does not attempt to associate itself with another being to make up a substance of integrity. The awareness of the insufficiency arises from the fact that it puts itself in question, which question needs the other or another to be enacted. Left on its own, a being closes itself, falls asleep and calms down.