You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Si j'etais/If I were Luis de la Sierra maybe it would be easier for me to speak more - in a large psychoanalytical view - about this Vergüenza ajena: “Spanish shame”, the sense of shame on behalf of the other, even though that person may not experience shame whatsoever. And maybe I would make you understand this basic emotion, this deep and unspeakable feeling that involves the subject when he's completely captive in the shame of his beloved object. And, maybe, so as to make you listen beyond the mental representation of this “Spanish shame”, I would let the Spanish music play all around us, and thus you could identify yourself with what a Spanish man/woman feels like when the other is not conscious of his/her own shame. But I'm not Luis de la Sierra, even if I tried to impersonate him, with these projective identifications, here and now. And, because I am definitely Daniela Luca, it has not been easy for me to choose from Luis de la Sierra's challenging paper that special topic that makes me think, elaborate, metaphorize and work-through more than the others. So, please let me speak more about altruism from a psychoanalytical view, not from a philosophical or ethical one, and about the difference between altruism and altruistic surrender, and the limits of selflessness.
Freud refers to the concept of altruism approximately ten times in