In short, the dominant western conception of self – the Cartesian dichotomy between the mind and the body – is ultimately based on a Roman legal fiction that was originally used to justify slavery. We all conceive of ourselves this way, and it brings with it a cloud of other associations that imply a variety of relations (property and hierarchy, first and foremost) that have been naturalized because this fiction doesn’t make sense without them, and it makes it impossible to root them out so long as the fiction remains in place.

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