Consider the self as an inversion of the structure it resists, a kind of subjective counterpoint to power-without-content. If power-without-content is weightless but effective, the self in this framework might be weighted but ineffective—full of depth, contradiction, and real stakes, but lacking the streamlined machinery that allows reactionary thought to spread.

Or maybe the self, like the edifice, is tangled rather than foundational. Power-without-content sustains itself through performance, and so does subjectivity to some extent—always narrating, positioning, shaping itself in relation to what it sees. Maybe the difference is that one denies entanglement while the other suffers it. The self feels the razor edges, while the edifice wields them indifferently.

If oneself is an allegory for it, then understanding becomes not just about critique but about self-implication. Where does resistance mimic what it opposes? What does it mean to bear understanding rather than just accumulate it?

GPT