Him, the Monster? The Ego Deformation in 'Rameau’s Nephew'

This essay deals with the topic of social deformation through the dialogue of MOI (Me) and LUI (Him), the two characters of 'Rameau's Nephew' by Diderot. This work overturns the Platonic terms of the dialogue form “staging” a comparison between a “philosopher” (MOI) and a “monster” (LUI). Through the proposed path we aimed to show how the deformation of the «social monster» Rameau concerns equally the levels of aesthetics, ethics and physiology. Hence the difficulty for the “philosopher” of the dialogue to find an identity in the deformation, to think the ego individuation of such a changing and monstrous HIM, someone who is able both to mock the truth, assuming several forms, as a “cold blood actor”, and to let truth «ferment» and to give back to anyone a fragment of "his natural individuality». We attempted to accomplish the described task by clarifying that the “Nephew's” monstrosity is just 'relative monstrosity', just one possibility of that ever changing “one”, that is man, and furthermore pointing to the relation between memory and freedom in order to find the theoretical fulcrum for a re-thinking of the “necessary” – and creating – role of deformation.