Brief thoughts on selfhood and the state
When Socrates went willingly to his execution, the reasons he gave were quite correct: as a subject of the city-state of Athens, he was obligated to submit himself to the law, even if he disagreed with its decision. That "his" body would be confined, made to suffer and die, was irrelevant. He wasn't "his" body, he was something else. And what the body feels and wants is irrelevant to the subject, the product of language and representative of the state. Oppressor of the body installed within the body. "I" oppress "my" self, insofar as the self is the body, by means of constructing an individuated identity and an aestheicized mode of "self"-expression of that identity.
Monotheism and the "I AM": the state deterritorialized, rendered abstract. Ever-present panopticon, spirit of leviathan, installed in every body except those too unruly to be allowed to live. How can the body-that-desires be liberated when it is made to desire its own repression? The body that clings to its self like a child to an abusive parent. After all, what is the alternative? And if the subject is on the body's side, what can it effectively do except surrender?