[This is a partial transcript of an intervention by Butler who was taking part on a panel speaking on Arendt]
Arendt’s thinking can take place with oneself or with one other … inside other and outside other … reworking in Mourning and Melancholia that he provides in Ego and the Id that it is only through the incorporation of lost others that I enter into certain kinds of relations with myself, a certain kind of splitting of the voice takes place where “I” and “me” are actually separated. What are the conditions by which the “I” and the “me” separate from one another, or I can address myself.
I start to address myself through melacholic self-beratement that seeks to preserve the lost other internally. Who is berating me? It’s the way of keeping the lost other alive through a splitting of the psyche into “I” and “me” where the voice of the other becomes my voice of self-beratement. And that’s my way of preserving that other internally and the same time splitting from myself.