Slime is the revenge of the In-itself

“Slime is the revenge of the In-itself” is the name given to a reversal in which the apparent object of possession seems to take possession of the one who handles it. The expression gathers together a tactile encounter, a threatened inversion of the relation between the For-itself and the In-itself, and a broader fear that facticity and the past might absorb consciousness. Slime is therefore not merely an unpleasant substance in this account: it becomes an image of an ideal mode of being that consciousness rejects as an Antivalue.

From Possession to Reversal

The slimy first seems docile, and thus available to possession. Unlike a solid object, it yields under pressure; its cohesion makes it possible to separate a portion from a larger mass and treat that portion as an individual object. The act seems to combine making and destroying: the possessor gives the substance an individual form while simultaneously squashing it. This is why the encounter illustrates creation-destruction rather than simple control. The would-be owner appears to make the object his, but the very softness that permits this action unsettles the assurance of mastery.

The decisive reversal comes when the person tries to release what has been held. The substance seems to cling and draw the hand back into the process of appropriation. Its action is neither the inert resistance of a solid nor the straightforward escape of a fluid. It gives way, yet that yielding can feel like a continuing claim on the person who sought to possess it. The possessor is no longer securely outside the process: what seemed docile appears to appropriate him in return. This inversion gives the expression its force. “Revenge” names not a deliberate act by the substance but the collapse of the expected hierarchy between active possessor and passive object.

The Threatened Ontological Inversion

The encounter suggests a possibility more disturbing than an ordinary failure to control an object: the In-itself might absorb the For-itself. Instead of the For-itself gathering the In-itself into an object while retaining its position as an assimilating and creative power, the terms could seem to reverse. The For-itself would then be drawn into the In-itself’s contingency, indifferent exteriority, and groundlessness. Slime figures this threatened arrangement without making it an actually realized kind of being. It is a possibility that appears through the experience of appropriation and gives the physical encounter ontological significance.

The image’s logic depends on a contrast among different kinds of matter. A solid can be released, while a fluid is characterized by flight; the slimy seems to offer itself to the hand but does not simply escape or remain inert. Its apparent accommodation conceals the danger of being compromised by it. The point is not that matter literally possesses intention, but that the encounter gives sensible form to a reversal in which the subject’s intended relation to an object no longer feels secure. The name “revenge” crystallizes that reversal: what was approached as something to take up becomes an image of the subject’s possible subordination to being.

Sweetness and the Image of Absorption

The expression is extended through the association between sliminess and a lingering sugary sweetness. The sweetness remains in the mouth after swallowing, making the encounter an image of persistence rather than a sensation that ends with the act of consumption. In the argument, sugary sliminess completes the figure because it represents the For-itself’s possible dissolution into what it sought to take in. The example of a wasp sinking into jam gives the image a compact form: the apparent object of consumption becomes the medium of absorption.

This sweetness also sharpens the paradox of possession. To appropriate an object is to make it one’s own without simply erasing its existence as an object; here, however, the act threatens to compromise the appropriator. The slimy is at once what the person tries to take up and a figure for being taken up in turn. The recurring language of yielding, adherence, and absorption makes the encounter a sustained reversal rather than a single startling sensation. Its attraction and threat belong to the same structure: what appears to invite possession is precisely what makes the possessor’s security uncertain.

Facticity, Time, and Antivalue

The metaphor reaches beyond the immediate encounter when the fear of slime becomes a fear that time itself might become slimy. A consciousness projects itself toward the future, yet the past may be imagined as holding it back and allowing its project to be invaded until it loses itself. The image of a flight of ideas in a psychosis of influence serves as an especially forceful comparison for this threatened condition. In ontological terms, the fear is of the For-itself being absorbed by the In-itself of facticity: not simply fear of death or of nothingness, but fear of a mode of being in which facticity advances and takes priority over the consciousness that exists it.

That imagined mode is called an Antivalue. It is not presented as an actual being, but as an ideal that consciousness rejects and nevertheless experiences as a persistent danger. The slimy thus becomes more than an illustration attached to an already established idea. Through the project of appropriation, the encounter makes a threatening relation of being intelligible: the For-itself may appear to lose its initiative and be drawn into the groundless In-itself. The expression “Slime is the revenge of the In-itself” names that danger in its most concentrated form, joining the reversal of possession to the fear that the past and facticity could absorb the freedom that projects beyond them.